Activity Theory in HCI

Fundamentals and Reflections

 Synthesis Lectures on
Human-Centered Informatics

Editor
John M. Carroll, Penn State University

Human-Centered Informatics (HCI) is the intersection of the cultural, the

social, the cognitive, and the aesthetic with computing and information
technology. It encompasses a huge range of issues, theories, technologies,
designs, tools, environments and human experiences in knowledge work,
recreation and leisure activity, teaching and learning, and the potpourri of
everyday life. The series will publish state-of-the-art syntheses, case
studies, and tutorials in key areas. It will share the focus of leading
international conferences in HCI.
Activity Theory in HCI: Fundamentals and Reflections
Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi
2012

Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design

Jeff Johnson and Austin Henderson
2011

Geographical Design: Spatial Cognition and Geographical Information

Science
Stephen C. Hirtle
2011
User-Centered Agile Methods
Hugh Beyer
2010
Experience-Centered Design: Designers, Users, and Communities in
Dialogue
Peter Wright and John McCarthy
2010

Experience Design: Technology for All the Right Reasons

Marc Hassenzahl
2010

Designing and Evaluating Usable Technology in Industrial Research: Three

Case Studies
Clare-Marie Karat and John Karat
2010

Interacting with Information

Ann Blandford and Simon Attfield
2010

Designing for User Engagement: Aesthetic and Attractive User Interfaces

Alistair Sutcliffe
2009

Context-Aware Mobile Computing: Affordances of Space, Social

Awareness, and Social Influence
Geri Gay
2009
Studies of Work and the Workplace in HCI: Concepts and Techniques
Graham Button and Wes Sharrock
2009
Semiotic Engineering Methods for Scientific Research in HCI
Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza and Carla Faria Leitão
2009
Common Ground in Electronically Mediated Conversation
Andrew Monk
2008
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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Activity Theory in HCI: Fundamentals and Reflections

Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi

ISBN: 978-3-031-01068-2 paperback

ISBN: 978-3-031-02196-1 ebook

DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-02196-1

A Publication in the Springer series

SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON HUMAN-CENTERED INFORMATICS
Lecture #13
Series Editor: John M. Carroll, Penn State University
Series ISSN
Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics
Print 1946-7680 Electronic 1946-7699
Parts of Chapters 2 and 3 are based on Chapters 3 and 10, respectively, of Acting with
Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design, by Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie
A. Nardi. Published by the MIT Press, Copyright © 2006, 2009, the MIT Press. Used
with permission.
Activity Theory in HCI
Fundamentals and Reflections

Victor Kaptelinin
University of Bergen and Umeå University

Bonnie Nardi
University of California, Irvine

SYNTHESIS LECTURES ON HUMAN-CENTERED INFORMATICS #13

ABSTRACT
Activity theory—a conceptual framework originally developed by Aleksei
Leontiev—has its roots in the socio-cultural tradition in Russian
psychology. The foundational concept of the theory is human activity,
which is understood as purposeful, mediated, and transformative interaction
between human beings and the world. Since the early 1990s, activity theory
has been a visible landmark in the theoretical landscape of Human-
Computer Interaction (HCI). Along with some other frameworks, such as
distributed cognition and phenomenology, it established itself as a leading
post-cognitivist approach in HCI and interaction design. In this book we
discuss the conceptual foundations of activity theory and its contribution to
HCI research. After making the case for theory in HCI and briefly
discussing the contribution of activity theory to the field (Chapter 1) we
introduce the historical roots, main ideas, and principles of activity theory
(Chapter 2). After that we present in-depth analyses of three issues which
we consider of special importance to current developments in HCI and
interaction design, namely: agency (Chapter 3), experience (Chapter 4), and
activity-centric computing (Chapter 5). We conclude the book with
reflections on challenges and prospects for further development of activity
theory in HCI (Chapter 6).

KEYWORDS
activity theory, post-cognitivist theory, object-orientedness, hierarchical
structure of activity, mediation, externalization, internalization,
development, activity system model, agency, experience, activity-centric
computing, hn-HC
 Contents

Preface

1 Introduction: Activity theory and the changing face of HCI

Theory in HCI
The objectives of the book
Activity theory in HCI: Selected contributions
Re-framing HCI concepts
Conceptual tools for design and evaluation
Theoretical lens
Some reflections for students

2 Basic concepts and principles of activity theory

Introduction
The general notion of activity
The origins of activity theory: Russian psychology of the 1920s and
1930s
Lev Vygotsky and the social nature of human mind
The individual/collective dimension: The dynamics of the
social distribution of the mind
From inter-psychological to intra-psychological
Sergei Rubinshtein and the principle of unity and
inseparability of consciousness and activity
The concept of activity and the evolution of psyche
The structure of human activity
Needs, motives, and the object of activity
Activities, actions, and operations
Functional organs
Basic principles of Leontiev’s activity theory: An overview
Engeström’s activity system model
 Current diversity of activity theoretical frameworks

3 Agency
A Typology of Agents
Artifacts
Conclusion

4 Activity and experience

Introduction
Analyses of subjective phenomena in activity theory
Activity theoretical vs. phenomenological perspectives on
experience in HCI

5 Activity-centric computing
A historical account of activity-centric computing
Activity-centric computing and activity theory
Current issues and prospects for future research in activity-centric
computing
A variety of perspectives in activity-centric computing
Design challenges and solutions
Evaluating activity-centric technologies and environments

6 Activity theory and the development of HCI

Introduction
hn-HCI
Time, space, scope
Activity theory and hn-HCI
Conclusion

Bibliography

Authors’ Biographies
 Preface

In graduate school, one of our professors once said, “Social theory should
be judged according to standards of truth, beauty, and justice.” The authors
judge activity theory highly, but we recall this statement to draw attention to
the burden of the professor’s message which asserts that theory is a special
kind of artifact embodying the highest human values. Encountering activity
theory provides an opportunity not only to learn the specifics of the theory
but to pause for reflections on the standards to which we hold science and
design.
Truth is no easy thing. It is legitimate to be troubled by simplistic
notions of truth, to believe only in partial truths, to insist on the wobbly
provisionality of all knowledge. But we can still root for the truth because
in practice, whether the quotidian empirics of everyday life or the grand
labors of Nobel Prize-winning scientific research, we prefer to know rather
than not to know. Truth in theory speaks to a fundamental human
orientation to reality.
The beauty of theory is perhaps less apparent. Aesthetic qualities are,
however, apprehended readily enough when one immerses in theory. The
revelatory experiences theory permits occur as moments of altered
perception when we see what we did not see before, when refigured ideas
and objects educate us to understand the world more complexly. These
moments move us as deeply as an artist’s unique visions. The standard of
beauty in theory is part of its essence as much as truth-seeking.
We puzzled over the “justice” part of the professor’s statement for
some years. Finally we came to see it as the most important quality of a
theory of social life. This standard seems a contradiction though—perhaps
the truth is not just and it would be disingenuous or delusional to pretend
otherwise. But social theory inevitably weaves itself back into the practices
of our lives. If we believe that man is a rational problem solver, maximizing
utility, we begin to design institutions around that notion, to live as though
it were true. The injustices of this view need not be retailed here (but they
start with “man”). Activity theory is animated by an optimistic, positive,
forward looking prospect in which imaginative reflexive activity always
holds possibilities for just action. The caring notion of development
foundational to activity theory proposed, from activity theory’s earliest
beginnings, that we humans are responsible for one another’s development,
and that growth and change continually renew our potentials as human
beings. Early activity theory research concerning education for the lower
classes, improved services for the disabled, and more just means of
educational testing deliberately focused on areas in which important aspects
of human development were at stake.
Now as we design and analyze digital technologies that affect billions
of people we are in part responsible, through the agency of these powerful
technologies, for broad swaths of the course of human development—
education, social life, commerce, governance. To the extent that
technologies are inflected by figurations of theory, consequential action
depends on the standards of the theories we invoke.
Throughout the writing of this book it has been a pleasure to work with
Jack Carroll, Series Editor, who gave us the opportunity to contribute to
Morgan & Claypool’s Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics.
Many thanks to Morgan & Claypool editor Diane Cerra for her flawless
good sense, flexibility, enthusiasm, and guidance. We are grateful to Liam
Bannon, Susanne Bødker, and Clay Spinuzzi for astute comments on earlier
version of the manuscript. Errors and omissions remain our own.

Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi

March 2012
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Activity theory and the

changing face of HCI

THEORY IN HCI
The need for theory in human-computer interaction (HCI) is not self-
obvious. Much of HCI research, let alone practice, does not use any theory
(at least, not explicitly). Concrete user studies, as well as design or
evaluation projects, often describe the methods employed but are rarely
framed within a theoretical framework.
However, a closer look reveals that theory in HCI plays a more
substantial role than what skimming through journal and conference papers
in the field might suggest. First, even though papers and books explicitly
referring to theory—any theory—are a minority, their absolute number is
not insignificant. Table 1.1 shows the number of hits produced by using the
names of selected theoretical frameworks as search strings in the ACM
Digital Library. The figures suggest that hundreds of studies are employing
theory, one way or another. Second, and more importantly, while not
statistically prevalent, theoretical and theory-informed explorations in HCI
have greatly contributed to the shaping of the field as a whole.
The very emergence of HCI as a field of research should be credited to
adopting the information processing psychology perspective on human
interaction with technology (Card et al., 1983). Information processing
psychology contributed to the development of the field in a variety of ways.
It served as a cross-disciplinary matchmaker by bringing together
psychologists interested in computer technology and computer scientists
interested in user interfaces and user behavior. It provided a common
language that could be used by people with different disciplinary
backgrounds. And it was instrumental in defining the agenda of early HCI,
with its focus on formal (or semiformal) interaction models and controlled
experiments.
Around the late 1980s–early 1990s, when HCI was reinventing itself
as a field dealing with “human actors” rather than “human factors”
(Bannon, 1991), theoretical considerations were also of central importance.
The shift from the “first wave HCI” to the “second wave HCI” (Cooper and
Bowers, 1995) was motivated by the need to overcome the limitations of
information processing psychology as a theoretical foundation for HCI
(Carroll, 1991). A variety of theoretical approaches were proposed as
alternative frameworks for the second wave HCI (Kaptelinin et al., 2003).
They included, among others, phenomenology (Winograd and Flores,
1987), the situated action perspective (Suchman, 1987), activity theory
(Bødker, 1991), and distributed cognition (Hollan et al., 2000; Norman,
1991). These frameworks contributed to extending the scope of HCI and
prioritizing understanding and supporting meaningful human action and
social interaction in everyday contexts.

Table 1.1: Second wave theories: Number of hits in ACM Digital

Library (www.dl.acm.org) on March 7, 2012.
 Activity theory, a conceptual approach originating in the Russian
psychology of the 1920s and 1930s, maintains that human uses of
technology can only be understood in the context of purposeful, mediated,
and developing interaction between active “subjects” and the world (that is,
“objects”). The theory was one of the leading contenders as a theoretical
foundation for second-wave HCI. Along with other frameworks, activity
theory has contributed to the conceptual transformation of HCI in the 1990s
and has established itself as a key element of HCI’s current theoretical
landscape. Carroll (2011) observed that “the most canonical theory-base in
HCI now is sociocultural, Activity Theory.” In discussing how “the features
of particular artifacts become entangled in the social practices of people’s
work,” Leonardi and Barley (2008) note that “students of computer-
supported cooperative work whose work is rooted in ethnomethodology and
activity theory have made the most progress on this score.”

THE OBJECTIVES OF THE BOOK

The most immediate aim of this book is to introduce the basic principles of
activity theory and discuss key applications in HCI, with a special focus on
recent HCI research. After briefly outlining the main types of contributions
of the theory to the field we provide a concise exposition of the principles
of activity theory. Then we move to a discussion of three key topical areas
for HCI: agency, experience, and activity-centric computing. Finally, we
discuss new streams of research in HCI such as sustainable interaction
design, ICTD, and collapse computing. We suggest the relevance of activity
theory to these emergent paradigms.
More broadly, we want to argue for the importance of nuanced
explanation and interpretation in HCI—goals that are well served by theory.
While practical concerns such as product usability are of critical
importance, the ultimate purpose of research is, as Kuutti (2010) remarks,
“to develop better understanding of the world around us.” Research is a
human quest of much larger scope than a particular invention or corporate
need or user experience. Kuuti (2010) makes the case nicely: “If we focus
only on practical usefulness and exclude explanation and interpretation, we
do serious harm to our very nature as researchers.”
 The journey to theory may be long and arduous. But we believe that
those of us who understand technology—which we regard as the most
powerfully shaping force of our era—have a special brief to be aware of
and to engage theories that underwrite certain intellectual and ethical
commitments. While we realize that not everyone heeds this call, the
commitments are of significant social importance and include: the
possibility for positive change, a complexly developed notion of human
agency, and the active promotion of social justice. The human-computer
interaction community, while diverse and at times contentious, agrees on
one thing that, within the scope of our discipline, makes these commitments
tenable: technology is an outcome of design, and design is under the aegis
of human intentionality and imagination. The logic of this simple statement
is profoundly empowering. As human beings, we have the capacity to shape
our own futures.
As agreeable as this logic probably is to most in the HCI community,
beyond our community not everyone sees it quite this way. Activity theorist
Anna Stetsenko (2008) offers a cautionary tale on the current state of social
theory and its wider societal implications. Despite technology’s ascendance
—which would suggest theoretical emphasis on human creativity and
agency—Stetsenko points to the regressive, sociobiologically-oriented
theory that dominates much current discourse:
[We see] a rising tide, indeed a tsunami, of starkly mechanistic views that reduce
human development (more boldly now than at any other time in recent history) to
processes in the brain rigidly constrained by genetic blueprints passed on to
contemporary humans from the dawn of evolution. [T]hese views . . . draw together
resurrected tenets of sociobiology, innatist linguistics, narrowly conceived
neuroscience, orthodox modular cognitivism, with [notions of] test-and-control
knowledge transmission.

Many of us in HCI would wonder how rigid blueprints begat Google,

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, virtual worlds, massively
multiplayer video games with millions of participants, and the other highly
imaginative technologies that are part of our lives—all of which came into
being within living memory of most inhabitants of the planet. What
mechanistic, genetic explanation harking back to the dawn of evolution
could foster inquiry into these technologies and our relations to them? As
readily as we might reject genetically based explanations, we ourselves
have not taken the crucial step of theorizing these unprecedented
sociotechnical developments. We ignore theory, and the very act of
theorizing, at our peril. Stetsenko (2008) notes that sociocultural approaches
—“critical pedagogy, social theory, adult learning, disability studies, critical
race theory, constructivist education, science studies, human-computer
interaction, feminist studies, literary criticism, cultural anthropology, and
developmental psychology”—are a looser and less powerful coalition than
the theories that comprise the “reductionist synthesis.”
The mechanistic view has badly overshadowed socially inflected
theorizing. There seem to be two reasons. First, sociocultural approaches
are “disconnected, without much dialogue or coordination among them”
(Stetsenko, 2008). Second, many (though not all) sociocultural approaches
produce that vacuum nature abhors—into which reductionist theory rushes.
Skepticism about “grand theory” coupled with a penchant for detailed,
literarily modulated but undertheorized discussions of cultural
constructions, fragmented identities, decentered selves, and so on, cede
control to reductionist theory with its clear, bold articulation of what it
means to be human. However well-deserved postmodern critiques of
inflexible standards of truth may be, their fatal flaw is to leave nothing
when people want something. Stetsenko’s (2008) eloquent statement is a
touchstone for why theory matters:
[M]any scholars of culture today are interested in addressing complexity and fluidity
of identity and subjectivity by focusing on their permeable boundaries and fleeting
expressions—their grounding in dispersed networks and multilayered sites—and are
less interested in explicitly conceptualizing human development and nature, including
the broadest question of what it means to be human. However, these “big” questions
do not and will not go away. When they remain undertheorized, the door is left open
for essentialist premises to sneak right back into even the utmost critical and cultural
conceptions of human development . . . (Stetsenko, 2008)

While many of us in the academy (including both of us) hesitate over

totalizing discourses, univocal treatments, and simplistic positivism, our
finely tuned sensitivities are at risk of devolving into something merely
precious, losing sight of broader objectives and societal goals. If we refuse
the call to answer the big questions, they will be answered by others whose
answers we might not like very much.
Academic accounts inevitably bleed into popular media, political
discourse, and policy discussions. Stetsenko (2008) argues that “Given the
recent tidal wave of simplified reductionist notions about human nature and
development . . . the goal of developing an alternative broad vision appears
to be not only important but urgently needed.” With Stetsenko, we believe
that activity theory has an important place in theorizing an alternative vision
to the big questions. Activity theory keeps these questions front and center.
What does it mean to be human? How are mind and consciousness related?
What is the nature of human action? We can dismiss these questions as tired
remnants of grand theory, but the questions never fail to reassert
themselves.

ACTIVITY THEORY IN HCI: SELECTED

CONTRIBUTIONS
Before proceeding to the next chapter which addresses basic principles of
activity theory, we try to set the scene by discussing how activity theory is
being used within the field of human-computer interaction1. Since its
introduction to the field in the late 1980s (Bødker, 1989), activity theory has
been applied in a wide range of studies. Early applications of activity theory
were predominantly either: (a) making the case for the theory as a
theoretical foundation for the field; or (b) retrospective analyses of previous
research or development projects. Applications of the first type including
the pioneering work of Bødker (1989; 1991), as well as other early
theoretical explorations, such as those by Kuutti (1991), Nardi (1992), and
Kaptelinin (1992), employed activity theory as a conceptual orienting
framework for HCI—a framework that was expected to provide a logically
consistent view of the field as a whole and help formulate new relevant
research questions. Applications of the second type, retrospective analyses
(e.g., Bødker, 1991; Nardi, 1994), employed the theory as a theoretical lens,
that is, a conceptual tool to help analyze concrete empirical evidence by
highlighting key issues for detailed examination and suggesting possible
interpretations.
 In the last two decades the ways of using the theory have changed in
several respects. First, the aim of applying activity theory as a conceptual
orienting basis is no longer to make a general case for activity theory as a
theoretical foundation of HCI. Theoretical explorations have become more
concrete and differentiated, focusing on either specific areas of study, such
as mobile learning (Uden, 2007) and design research (Kuutti, 2010), or
specific HCI concepts, such as affordances (Albrechtsen et al., 2001;
Baerentsen and Trettvik, 2002; Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2012) or services
(Kaptelinin and Uden, 2012).
Second, a similar trend toward more concrete and differentiated uses
of the theory is evident when considering the theory employed as a
theoretical lens. Not only is activity theory being used now within ongoing
projects (rather than retrospectively), it is also employed in more nuanced
ways, capitalizing on a wider and more articulated set of concepts (e.g.,
Bødker and Andersen, 2005; Manker and Arvola, 2011; Nardi, 2005).
Third, applications of the theory have been progressively more focused
on design. Even though in HCI there is a fine line between analysis and
design, one can still differentiate between research which is mostly
concerned with understanding people, and research which is mostly
concerned with exploring novel ways of supporting people with interactive
technologies. The contribution of activity theory to the latter has been
twofold. On the one hand, the theory stimulated the development of a
variety of analytical tools for design and evaluation. On the other hand, its
applications resulted in a number of novel systems, implementing the ideas
of activity-centric (or activity-based) computing.
In general, activity theory contributions to the field of HCI have been
of the following three types: (a) theoretical re-framing of some of the most
basic HCI concepts, (b) providing conceptual tools for design and
evaluation, and (c) serving as a theoretical lens in empirical studies. Let us
consider a few selected examples.

RE-FRAMING HCI CONCEPTS

The unit of analysis proposed by activity theory, that is, “subject-object”
interaction, may appear similar to the traditional focus of HCI on “human-
computer” interaction. However, adopting an activity theoretical
perspective has had important implications for understanding how people
use interactive technologies. First of all, it made immediately obvious that
“computer” is typically not an object of activity but rather a mediating
artifact. Therefore, generally speaking, people are not interacting with
computers: they interact with the world through computers. The book by
Susanne Bødker which played a key role in introducing activity theory to
HCI reflected this perspective on interactive technologies in its title:
Through the Interface: An Activity-theoretical Perspective on Human-
computer Interaction (Bødker, 1991).
Another general theoretical contribution of activity theory to HCI was
placing computer use in the hierarchical structure of human activity, that is,
relating the operational (low-level) aspects of interaction with technology to
meaningful goals and, ultimately, the needs and motives of technology
users. It did not mean rejecting the formal models of users and tasks
developed in early HCI research, but rather called for extending the scope
of analysis beyond low-level interaction to the higher level concerns of
motivation and goal seeking. Such an extension is consistent with the need
of the field to move “from human factors to human actors” (Bannon, 1991).
In our recent paper (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2012) we employ activity
theory to reappraise the notion of affordance in HCI. We argue that the
original Gibsonian notion (Gibson, 1979) is of limited relevance to the field
because it predominantly focuses on “animal-environment” interaction and
fails to recognize technologies as culturally developed tools mediating
human interaction with the world. We concur with Gibson that a natural
human way to perceive the environment is to actively pick up information
about possibilities for action, that is, affordances. However, we understand
technology as a mediational means employed in social, cultural
environments, which has direct implications for how technology
affordances are conceptualized. In particular, we argue that action
possibilities provided by a technology comprise two related facets: (a)
possibilities for interacting with the technology (P-T), i.e., handling
affordances, and (b) possibilities for employing the technology to make an
effect on an object (T-O), i.e., effecter affordances. Together, they define
instrumental technology affordances as possibilities for acting through the
technology in question on a certain object ((P-T)-O).
CONCEPTUAL TOOLS FOR DESIGN AND EVALUATION
Activity theory is a clarifying, orienting framework. It is not a “theory” in
the traditional sense in which theory is understood in natural sciences.
Activity theory does not support creating and running predictive models
which only need be “fed” with appropriate data. Instead, it aims to help
researchers and practitioners orientate themselves in complex real-life
problems, identify key issues that need to be dealt with, and direct the
search for relevant evidence and suitable solutions. In other words, the key
advantage of activity theory is to support researchers and practitioners in
their own inquiry—for instance, by helping to ask right questions—rather
than providing ready-made answers.
Activity theory has spawned a number of practical tools for design and
evaluation. These tools support asking “the right questions” in the analysis,
design, and evaluation of interactive systems (Quek and Shah, 2004). Many
such tools have the format of a checklist: they are, essentially, organized
lists of questions or issues that researchers or practitioners need to pay
attention to in order to make sure that the most important aspects of human
activity are taken into account.
The choice of the checklist format is intended to help bridge the gap
between theory’s high level of abstraction and the need to address concrete
issues in analysis and design. Activity theory is a high level framework, not
limited to particular types of artifacts, and needs to be adjusted to HCI
research and practice. Activity theory-based checklists reduce the effort
associated with domain-specific adjustment of the theory by converting the
organized set of concepts, offered by the theory, into a set of concrete issues
and questions, directly related to analysis and design of interactive
technologies.
Different checklists are based on different variants of activity theory.
For instance, the Activity Checklist (Kaptelinin et al., 1999) is intended to
support systematic exploration of the “space of context” in design and
evaluation of interactive technologies. The overall structure of the checklist
is derived from the basic principles of Leontiev’s framework and comprises
four sections—Means and ends; The environment; Learning; cognition, and
articulation; and Development. The checklist was employed in a number of
design and evaluation projects (see Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). In a recent
study by Manker and Arvola (2011) the Activity Checklist was employed as
a tool for structuring and interpretation of empirical evidence collected in
an interview study of prototyping in game design.
Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy (1999) introduce another analytical tool
based on a somewhat different (while partly overlapping) set of activity-
theoretical concepts. The tool comprises several organized arrays of
questions and issues derived from Engeström’s activity system model
(discussed in detail in the next chapter). The basic components of the model
—Subject, Object, and Community, as well as Tools, Rules, and Roles
mediating the three-way interaction between the components—serve as the
rubric for issues that need to be taken into account and modeled when
designing the components of a constructivist learning environment and
relationships between the components. Mwanza’s AODM (Activity-
oriented design method) approach to supporting technology-enhanced
learning analysis and design includes lists of issues to explore (Mwanza,
2002). The AODM capitalizes on the conceptual structure provided by
Engeström’s activity system model.
Matthews et al. (2007) developed a framework, informed by activity
theory, for understanding, designing, and evaluating peripheral displays.
The framework employs the activity-theoretical distinction between
conscious actions and automatic operations to define the notion of
“peripheral displays” which are primarily used at the operation level. In
addition, the framework introduces a useful taxonomy of activities
depending on their current status: (a) primary (foreground) activities, (b)
secondary (background) activities, (c) pending activities, which are likely to
become primary ones, and (d) dormant activities. The authors propose a set
of evaluation criteria and a list of design guidelines for designing and
evaluating peripheral displays.
Li and Landay (2008) report the design, implementation, and testing of
the ActivityDesigner, a design environment for prototyping ubiquitous
computing applications to support everyday activities that take place over
extended periods. The ActivityDesigner allows designers to integrate field
observations, activity analysis and modeling, interaction prototyping, and in
situ testing within the overall framework of an Activity-Based Ubicomp
Prototyping process.
 Bødker and Klokmose (2011) propose the Human-Artifact Model, a
minimalist activity-theory based representation of various aspects of an
artifact combined with corresponding levels of human activity, intended to
be used in analysis and design of interactive artifacts with little or no prior
knowledge of activity theory. The model is argued to be a powerful tool for
providing an account of action possibilities offered by an artifact as
contextualized in larger-scale “ecologies of artifacts.”

THEORETICAL LENS
One of the most common ways of applying activity theory in HCI is using
its concepts when analyzing empirical evidence obtained in a study. Bryant
et al. (2005) interviewed expert contributors to Wikipedia and used
Engeström’s activity system model as a conceptual tool for understanding
the development of novices into “Wikipedians.” The authors showed that
the development can be described in terms of the transformation of
subjects, transformation of tool use (e.g., the use of editing tools and
watchlists), as well as transformation of subjects’ perceptions of
community, rules, and division of labor.
Empirical studies of collaboration conducted by Carroll and his
colleagues (Carroll et al., 2006; Carroll, 2012) suggest that in real-life
contexts the phenomena of awareness—one of the key objects of study in
CSCW research—include more than merely awareness in respect to joint
actions, mutual presence, and shared situations. Carroll observes:
In framing activity awareness, we appropriated the concept of activity from Activity
Theory, to emphasize that collaborators need be aware of a whole, shared activity as
complex, socially and culturally embedded endeavor, organized in dynamic
hierarchies, and not merely aware of the synchronous and easily noticeable aspects of
the activity (Carroll, 2012).

SOME REFLECTIONS FOR STUDENTS

We take a moment to address a few words primarily to students. In this era
of mashups, machinimas, markups, and other combinations-and-
permutations derivatives, the craft of theorizing may give way to less
demanding “one from column A and one from column B” approaches. (We
recently reviewed a paper which invoked actor-network theory, activity
theory, performativity, sociomateriality, the mangle of practice, processes of
imbrication, and agential cuts.) Unruly theoretical mixing and matching
risks illogic and inconsistency. A theory has integrity; it constitutes a set of
commitments. A theory contains axioms, principles, and perspectives. It
defines and delineates a world view. Theory is accountable to its principles:
it states and defends claims. In the logic of a theory, concepts build on and
articulate with one another. Analysis by lazy bricolage—tossing in one
theoretical bit here, another there—is probably going to end in an
incoherent mess.
In making this argument, we are not eschewing principled theoretical
synthesis. Far from it. Often the way forward is by means of artful
theoretical melds—theories can and should mutually inform and influence
one another. But we must also be alert to the conceptual spaces in which
theories conflict and diverge. It is here that we sometimes fail to apprehend
what it is a theory is standing up for, its non-negotiable demands. To deal
with this complexity, we suggest taking time to internalize a few theories
from the bottom up, to appreciate the commitments and logics they entail.
We hope this book will be a means for finding an appreciation of activity
theory. Even if readers do not ultimately choose activity theory for their
research, there is pedagogical value in taking activity theory as a “worked
example” of fundamental concepts of subject and object, history,
development, mediation, and so on. Examining how activity theory presents
and articulates such concepts repays study. It will be clearer how, by
contrast, other theories deal with these concepts. Or how they do not deal
with them at all.
Theory is a tool for thinking. As with any tool, knowing what it is
capable of, how it works, its capacities and limitations, are essential for
effective use. We believe that in reaching an appreciation of theory, readers
will find, at a minimum, the reward of the aesthetics of good theory. Within
a good theory, concepts flow into and affirm one another, a distinctive
picture of reality is rendered, things unseen are now seen.
The converse is, of course, also true. Theories cast shadows, they leave
areas of darkness. Discerning these shadows can inspire us to produce new
theory. In Chapter 6, for example, we draw on Bødker and Andersen’s
discussion of complex mediation that interweaves activity theory and
semiotic analysis (see also González et al., 2009; Rogers, 2004; Stahl, 2011
for extensions to theory). As tools, theories are mutable things that can be
refined, reshaped, recast, reimagined. They are wonderful, even amazing,
products of human imagination. Given our enthusiasm for theory, it is no
surprise that we hope that engaging activity theory will lead you to
appreciate the beautiful logics and intuitions of a well-crafted theory,
whatever theory it may be.
The book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides an introduction
to activity theory, its historical roots, main ideas, and principles. The next
chapters go into depth on the concepts of agency and “experience,” and
then activity-centric computing. Chapter 6 concludes with reflections on
current applications of activity theory in HCI, as well as challenges and
opportunities for future development of the theory.

1We do not aim to provide a representative overview of HCI and interaction design
research informed by activity theory. Such overviews can be found elsewhere (see,
for instance, Bertelsen and Bødker, 2003; Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006; Nardi,
1996a,b, and Wilson, 2008).
 CHAPTER 2

Basic concepts and principles of activity

theory

INTRODUCTION

Since early work in HCI and activity theory such as Bødker (1989) and
Nardi (1996a), “activity” has entered the HCI conversation as researchers
attempt to reformulate study in more expansive ways sensitive to the
realities of our lives. As Moran (2005a) noted, “Activity is a central
theoretical construct in HCI/CSCW research and theory.” This welcome
development demonstrates a serious commitment to apprehending the
complexity of human life as a necessary research strategy in HCI.
However, it is often the case that even within more expansive
approaches, “activity” is undertheorized. It is used primarily in an intuitive
or common sense way. Activity theory goes beyond commonsense/intuitive
notions of activity and takes a close look at what activity can mean in more
precise, theoretically informed ways. In this chapter we examine how
activity theory conceives activity.
We present an introduction to activity theory, its basic concepts and
principles. We start with a discussion of the notion of activity as a
psychological concept as it was developed in Russian psychology of the
early 20th century, and reflect on the historical roots of activity theory. Then
we give an overview of the underlying ideas and principles of the activity
theoretical approach developed by Alexey Leontiev (1978; 1981), and,
finally, describe the version of activity theory, based on Leontiev’s
approach, which was proposed by Yrjö Engeström (Engeström, 1987;
Engeström et al., 1999).
A few clarifications are in order before we proceed further. First, this
introduction reflects our own attempt to discern and organize the underlying
ideas of activity theory, which are seldom presented in a concise and
structured way in the original texts by Leontiev and other scholars who
contributed to the development of the approach. Other interpretations of the
basic concepts and principles of activity theory can also be found in the
literature. While these interpretations are largely consistent with one
another, they may differ in certain details.
Second, this chapter specifically deals with two versions of activity
theory: the approach developed by Leontiev and a closely related approach
proposed by Engeström. By “activity theory” in general we mean an
aggregated framework comprising a combination of these two approaches.
There are other approaches, which have “activity theory” in their names, as
well. A systematic exploration of the question of what (if any) conceptual
links are there between these approaches and the ones developed by
Leontiev and Engeström is beyond the scope of our discussion here.
Third, various transliterations of the Russian last name “Леонтьев” are
found in the literature. In addition to “Leontiev,” the spellings employed
include “Leont’ev,” “Leontjew,” and so forth. To avoid possible confusion,
we uniformly use “Leontiev” throughout the book. Alternative spellings are
additionally indicated in the reference list, when appropriate.

THE GENERAL NOTION OF ACTIVITY

“Activity,” the foundational concept of activity theory, is understood as a
relationship between the subject (that is, an actor) and the object (that is, an
entity objectively existing in the world). A common way to represent
activity is “S < − > O.”
The concept refers to a special type of relationship between the subject
and the object; it is characterized by two distinctive features: (a) subjects of
activities have needs, which should be met through subjects’ interaction
with the world, and (b) activities and the entities they are relating (i.e.,
subjects and objects) mutually determine one another. More generally,
activities are generative forces that transform both subjects and objects.
Subjects have needs. Activity is understood as a “unit of life” of a
material subject existing in the objective world. Subjects have their own
needs and, in order to survive, must carry out activities, that is, interact with
objects of the world to meet the needs. Leontiev’s analysis was mostly
concerned with activities of individual human beings, but the notion of
“subject” is not limited to individual humans. Other types of entities, such
as animals, teams, and organizations can also have need-based agency and,
therefore, be subjects of activities (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006).
Activities and their subjects mutually determine one another. It is
immediately obvious that activities are influenced by the attributes of
subjects and objects. Consider a simple example. Undoubtedly, whether or
not a person can solve a math problem depends on the nature of the
problem (e.g., how difficult it is) and the person’s abilities and skills (i.e.,
how good the person is at math). In the long run, however, the opposite is
also true: both the object and the subject are over time transformed by the
activity. It is apparent, for instance, that a person’s math skills are a result of
previous experience: they have developed through solving math problems
in the past. In other words, while a person’s math abilities determine how
the person solves math problems, it is also true that solving math problems
determine the person’s math abilities. Therefore, subjects do not only
express themselves in their activities; in a very real sense they are produced
by the activities (cf. Rubinshtein, 1986).
This view of human activity is a hallmark of an age-old intellectual
tradition that manifested itself throughout history in a variety of seemingly
diverse schools of thought, one way or another. This view emphasizes the
fundamental inseparability of human beings and the world, as well as the
generative and transformative nature of purposeful human action. Some of
the early insights stemming from the tradition can be found in Eastern
philosophy, most notably Buddhism. Buddha is believed to teach, for
instance, that:

One is not a Brahmin by birth,

Nor by birth a non-Brahmin.

By action is one a Brahmin,

By action is one a non-Brahmin.

So that is how the truly wise
 See action as it really is.

Seers of dependent origination,

Skilled in actions and its results.

Action makes the world go round

Action makes this generation turn.
Living beings are bound by action
Like the chariot wheel by the pin.

Despite their differences, both activity theory and Buddhism consider the
contradistinction between the subject and the object as something that is not
inherently given but rather produced by action.
In Western thought the fundamental insight of the inseparability of
subjects and objects is expressed, for instance, in the philosophical views of
Hegel and Marx, Goethe’s poetry, Brentano’s “act psychology,” and the
ecological psychology of Gibson.

THE ORIGINS OF ACTIVITY THEORY: RUSSIAN

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 1920s AND 1930s
The immediate conceptual origins of activity theory can be found in
Russian/Soviet psychology of the 1920s and 1930s. During that time
theoretical explorations in Russian psychology were heavily influenced by
Marxist philosophy. A collective effort of a number of prominent Soviet
psychologists, most notably Lev Vygotsky and Sergei Rubinshtein—an
effort that also involved much disagreement and even open conflicts—gave
rise to a broadly understood sociocultural perspective in Russian
psychology.
The main conceptual thrust of the sociocultural perspective was to
overcome the divide between, on the one hand, human mind, and on the
other hand, culture and society. As opposed to most psychological
frameworks of that time, the perspective considered culture and society
generative forces, “responsible” for the very production of human mind,
rather than external factors, however important, that constitute conditions
for the functioning of mind without changing its basic nature.
The work based on the sociocultural perspective produced a number of
fundamental insights. Some of the most important contributions were as
follows:

• Vygotsky’s (1978) universal law of development, according to which

human mental functions first emerge as distributed between the person
and other people (i.e., as “inter-psychological” ones) and only then as
individually mastered by the person himself or herself (i.e., as “intra-
psychological” ones), and

• The principle of “unity and inseparability of consciousness and

activity,” proposed by Rubinshtein (1946) according to which human
conscious experience and human acting in the world, the internal and
the external, are closely interconnected and mutually determine one
another.

Leontiev’s activity theory2 emerged as an outgrowth of the sociocultural

perspective. The theory employs a number of ideas developed by Vygotsky,
Leontiev’s mentor and friend. It is also strongly influenced by the work of
Rubinshtein, a major figure in Russian psychology and a long-time
colleague of Leontiev’s (Brushlinsky and Aboulhanova-Slavskaya, 2000).
Arguably, activity theory also features some other influences which are
more difficult to discern, such as the framework developed by Mikhail
Basov (1991). The basic assumptions of activity theory are the same as
those underlying the sociocultural perspective in Russian psychology in
general: namely, the assumptions of the social nature of human mind and
inseparability of human mind and activity.
At the same time, Leontiev’s activity theory was not a simple imprint
of all these influences. As discussed below, while the framework
incorporates a variety of ideas developed by Vygotsky, Rubinshstein, and
others, these ideas were revised and elaborated upon by Leontiev to form
his own distinct and consistent conceptual framework.
LEV VYGOTSKY AND THE SOCIAL NATURE OF HUMAN
MIND
The most fundamental issue for Vygotsky was the relationship between the
mind, on the one hand, and culture and society, on the other. He maintained
that culture and society are not merely external factors influencing the mind
but rather generative forces directly involved in the very production of
mind. It was critically important, according to Vygotsky, that this
fundamental idea be assimilated by psychology.
The clear implication of this postulate is that our relation to technology
(which is part of culture) is a deep one; the use of technology materially
shapes who we are and become. Technologies do not exist simply as neutral
“helpers” “out there” that we pick and choose from according to the
demands of some task. We grow and change in intimate relation to and with
technology, developing as skilled persons according to how we learn and
use technology. Our very personality and identity spring from
connectedness to technology; for example, we become proficient software
developers, competitive video gamers, famous bloggers. From this
connection to technology, communities of practice and social networks are
defined as we encounter others through the development of technologically
based skills.
At the same time, Vygotsky rejected a straightforward view of culture
and society as directly determining or shaping the human mind. Vygotsky
argued that the only way to reveal the impact of culture on the mind was to
follow developmental, historical transformations of mental phenomena in
the social and cultural context. This directive is enormously challenging to
execute in practice but remains an important ideal as it is seemingly the
only way to confront the actual complexity of mind.
A concept proposed by Vygotsky for analysis of the social
determination of mind was the notion of higher psychological functions.
Higher psychological functions can be contrasted to “natural” psychological
functions, i.e., mental abilities such as memory or perception with which
every animal is born. These functions can develop as a result of maturation,
practice, or imitation, but their structure does not change and these
functions are basically the same in similar species. Human beings have
natural psychological functions, too, which are similar to those of other
primates. However, human beings also develop higher psychological
functions. Higher psychological functions emerge as a result of a re-
structuring of natural psychological functions in a cultural environment.
This re-structuring can be described as an emerging mediation of natural
psychological functions.
Human beings seldom interact with the world directly. An enormous
number of artifacts has been developed by humankind to mediate our
relationship with the world. Using these artifacts is the hallmark of living
the life of a human being. Tools or instruments—physical artifacts
mediating external activities—are easy to recognize and their impact on the
everyday life of every individual is obvious.
By way of analogy to conventional technical tools (like hammers),
Vygotsky introduced the notion of psychological tools, such as an algebraic
notation, a map, or a blueprint. Technical tools are intended to help people
affect things, while psychological tools are signs intended to help people
affect others or themselves (Vygotsky, 1982). Of course, “psychological
tools” and tools in a more traditional sense are very different. Vygotsky
warned against pushing the analogy too far (Vygotsky, 1982, 1983)3.
However, one thing is common to instruments and signs, which is their role
in human activity. Both hammers and maps are mediators. The use of
mediators, whether crushing a nutshell or becoming oriented in an
unfamiliar city, changes the structure of human behavior and mental
processes. Psychological tools transform natural mental processes into
instrumental acts (Figure 2.1), that is, mental processes mediated by
culturally developed means. Vygotsky referred to mediated mental
processes as higher mental functions, to separate them from unmediated
natural mental functions that can be observed in other animals as well.
Initially Vygotsky (1982) did not make a distinction between
psychological tools as physical artifacts (e.g., pieces of art, maps, diagrams,
blueprints) and as symbolic systems (e.g., languages, numeric systems,
algebraic notations) that in some cases can exist only “in the head.” It did
not take long, however, for him to realize the importance of whether or not
psychological tools are physical, external artifacts. Empirical studies of
higher psychological functions showed that in many cases, subjects who
used external mediational artifacts to solve a task spontaneously stopped
using these artifacts and improved their performance. Vygotsky (1983)
explained this phenomenon in terms of internalization (which he also
referred to as “growing inside,” vraschivanie, especially in his earlier
works), that is, the “transition of an external operation into an internal one”
(Vygotsky, 1983, our translation).

Figure 2.1: The structure of an instrumental act, based on Vygotsky (1982). “A-B”
represents a simple association between two stimuli, underlying a natural mnemonic
act. When memory transforms into a high-level psychological function, this
association is replaced with an instrumental act comprising “A-X” and “X-B.”

In the process of internalization, some of the previously external

processes can take place in the internal plane, “in the head.” The processes
remain to be mediated, but mediated by internal signs rather than external
ones. It should be emphasized that internalization is not a translation of
initially external processes into a pre-existing internal plane; the internal
plane itself is created through internalization (Leontiev, 1978).
Internalization of mediated external processes results in mediated internal
processes. Externally mediated functions become internally mediated.
Internalization is not just an elimination of external processes but
rather a re-distribution of internal and external components within a
function as a whole. Such a re-distribution may result in a substantial
transformation of both external and internal components, such as an
increased reliance on internal components at the expense of external ones,
but both internal and external components are always present. The raison
d’etre for internal activities is their actual or potential impact on how the
individual is interacting with the world. The impact can only be made
through external activities. For instance, after conducting calculations “in
the head” a child may decide to buy fewer candies than she originally
planned because she realizes that their total cost would exceed the amount
of cash she has4.
Over the course of internalization, external processes can transform
into internal ones. There is no firm boundary between the internal, the inner
world of subjective phenomena, and the external, objective world.
Internalization is one of the main modes of cultural determination of the
mind. Internalization enables external mediation by culturally developed
tools to effect internal, mental processes, which become culturally
mediated, as well.

THE INDIVIDUAL/COLLECTIVE DIMENSION: THE

DYNAMICS OF THE SOCIAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE
MIND
Vygotsky’s call for a revision of the traditional view of a border separating
the mind and the physical world was paralleled by a call for a revision of
another dichotomy, the one between the individual and other people. It was
claimed that individuals and their social environments are not separated by
an impenetrable border. Instead, they were understood as two poles of a
single dimension, which is also a dimension of the dynamics of mental
processes over the course of their development.
Sometimes this dimension is not clearly differentiated from the
previous one: both the internal/external dimension and the
individual/collective dimension are considered different aspects of the same
phenomenon of internalization. In other words, internalization is considered
a process during which phenomena external to the subject, both physical
and social, become both individual and internal.
However, these two dimensions—internal/external and
individual/social—should not be merged into a single dimension (see also
Arievitch and van der Veer, 1995). The dynamics of the internal and
external components of psychological functions can be relatively
independent of the dynamics of individual and collective processes.
 This can be illustrated with examples of internalization that are not
paralleled by a transformation of collective activities into individual ones.
For instance, consider a person driving a car who initially relies on a map
but eventually learns the map and gets by without it. The means of carrying
out the navigation task undergoes a significant transformation: from relying
on an external artifact to relying on an internalized representation.
However, over the course of this transformation the activity does not
necessarily become less (or more) collective; it remains an individual
activity. Or let us take an example of a musician who plays in an orchestra
and internalizes musical scores when participating in the collective activity.
The degree to which the musician relies on external artifacts (music sheets)
has little to do with participation in the collective activity of the orchestra.
These examples indicate that a decreased reliance on an external
artifact does not necessarily imply a corresponding transformation of a
collective activity into an individual one. It does not mean that these two
dimensions are completely independent, either. They may well be two
aspects of the same phenomenon. Yet they are different issues and each
deserves a special analysis.
The dynamics of the individual and the social was a key issue in
cultural-historical psychology. This issue was addressed by Vygotsky with
two concepts, closely related to each other: the law of psychological
development and the zone of proximal development.

FROM INTER-PSYCHOLOGICAL TO INTRA-

PSYCHOLOGICAL
According to Vygotsky, acquisition of psychological functions is
subordinated to a universal law of psychological development: new
psychological functions do not directly appear as functions of the individual
(i.e., intra-psychological functions). First a function is distributed between
the individual and other people; it emerges as an inter-psychological
function. Even though the individual may carry out some or even most
components of a function, she cannot initially perform the function alone.
Over time, the individual progressively masters the function and can reach
the phase at which the function can be performed without help from others.
 For instance, when new drivers start learning to drive a car in a
specially equipped training car, they may appear responsible for the driving
(since they carry out basic operations such as pressing pedals and turning
the steering wheel). But much of the driving may in fact be done by the
instructor, who sets the direction, monitors the overall situation, and makes
most decisions. With time, the learner can assume responsibility for more
and more tasks and eventually develop the ability to drive on his own. The
same or similar phenomena can be observed in practically any other case of
an individual acquiring a new function, including reading and writing. Even
if an individual appears to learn alone, a closer look may reveal support
provided by other people in the design of a textbook, the functionality of an
interactive help system, or other artifacts and environments that embody the
experience of other learners, helpers, and teachers.
Therefore, the “universal law of psychological development” states
that new psychological functions first emerge as inter-psychological ones
and then as intra-psychological ones. An application of this law to the
practical tasks of assessment and support of child development resulted in
the formulation of the most well-known concept of cultural historical
psychology, the concept of “the zone of proximal development.” The
concept was defined by Vygotsky as follows:
The distance between the actual level of development as determined by independent
problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through
problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.
(Vygotsky, 1978)

Vygotskey’s suggestion was, essentially, to measure the level of

development not through measuring the level of current performance, but
through measuring the difference (“the distance”) between two performance
indicators: (1) an indicator of independent problem solving, and (2) an
indicator of problem solving in a situation in which the individual is
provided with support form other people.
Taken together, Vygotsky’s ideas defined a new perspective in
psychology, which attempted to find the origins of mind in culture and
society. Many other approaches took (and still are taking) for granted that
the subjective processes of the individual constitute a separate world related
to objective reality mostly through perception, and it is up to the individual
to decipher sensory inputs and transform them into a meaningful picture of
reality. Cultural-historical psychology takes a radically difference stance. It
postulates that reality itself is filled with meanings and values. Human
beings develop their own meanings and values not by processing sensory
inputs but by appropriating the meaning and values objectively existing in
the world. The most thorough perceptual analyses of the shape, color, and
other visual attributes of religious symbols and texts do not guarantee that a
person understands the commandments of a religion. Such an understanding
requires an interaction with the world at a higher level than visual
perception: the person needs to relate to meanings that are already there.
The border between the mind and the physical world, between the
individual and other people, is not closed. It is being dynamically re-defined
on a moment-to-moment basis depending on a variety of factors. Meaning
and values can cross these borders—of course, being creatively transformed
along the way.

SERGEI RUBINSHTEIN AND THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY

AND INSEPARABILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND
ACTIVITY
As mentioned, Leontiev’s theoretical explorations of activity as a
foundational concept of psychological analysis were heavily influenced by
the work of Sergei Rubinshstein, and especially the principle of “unity and
inseparability of consciousness and activity,” proposed by Rubinshtein
(e.g., Rubinshtein, 1946). It should be noted, however, that Leontiev’s
interpretation of the relationship between mind and activity was somewhat
different from the position advocated by Rubinshtein. Leontiev extends and
develops the original scope of Rubinshtein’s principle of “unity and
inseparability of consciousness and activity,” in three respects. First,
Leontiev states that psychological studies should not focus only on the
“psychological aspect or facet of activity” (as suggested by Rubinshtein),
such as the relationship between activity and subjective experiences.
Instead, he maintained that the relevance of activity to psychology is of a
more general nature: activity is of fundamental importance to psychology
because of its special function, “the function of placing the subject in the
objective reality and transforming this reality into a form of subjectivity”
(Leontiev, 1975, our translation). Second, as discussed below, Leontiev’s
analysis focuses on both conscious and unconscious mental phenomena.
Third and finally, Leontiev offered a number of more concrete insights
about the relationship between mind and activity, most notably the idea of
structural similarity between internal and external processes.

THE CONCEPT OF ACTIVITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF

PSYCHE
Leontiev started his professional career by taking part in a large-scale
research program initiated and coordinated by Vygotsky. Later on he
formulated his own agenda which was an ambitious attempt to provide a
theoretical account of the evolution of mind.
The general idea of the mind being a special kind of organ emerging in
evolution to help organisms survive has been part of Russian psychology
since the 1920s. However, the idea remained an abstract statement, a
philosophical claim rather than a theory. Leontiev’s ambition was to
translate this general statement into a concrete description of how the first
phenomena that can be called “psyche” emerged in history, and how they
developed into the current variety of mental phenomena. To accomplish this
goal Leontiev needed a special kind of analytical tool, a concept more
general than psyche, that would make it possible to define the context in
which the psyche emerges and develops. An obvious candidate for such a
concept is “life,” since ultimately this is what undergoes evolutionary
changes. However, this concept is too general and too vague. Instead,
Leontiev chose “activity” as a concept that can provide a more concrete
insight into what “life” is.
For Leontiev the phenomenon under consideration, the developing
system he analyzed, was the mind, or psyche. Accordingly, the first
challenge was to find the earliest, most elementary form of psyche as it
emerged in evolution. The task was anything but trivial. There were a
number of views regarding when exactly in biological evolution psyche
appears for the first time. Is psyche a property of all living organisms? Must
the “evolutionary threshold” be raised to include only animals having
central nervous system? Only humans? Since answers to these questions
were, quite understandably, based on logical arguments and beliefs rather
than empirical evidence, it was hardly possible to establish with certainty
which of the answers, if any, was correct. Therefore, the problem remained
open and a space was left for suggesting new possible solutions. Leontiev
did just that by developing his own line of arguments and proposing his
own hypothesis about the emergence of psyche in biological evolution.
These arguments and hypothesis can be summarized as follows.
A characteristic feature of all biological organisms is their ability to
actively respond to environmental factors, that is, their “responsiveness.”
Organisms are not passively influenced by the environment; they develop
their own internal and external responses using their own energy. This
responsiveness, according to Leontiev, can be of two different types. First,
organisms can respond to stimuli that produce direct biological effects. For
instance, food may trigger digestive processes and can be actively
assimilated by an organism, while changes in the ambient temperature may
result in responses directed at maintaining an organism’s own temperature
within certain limits. Another type of responsiveness takes place when an
organism responds to a stimulus that does not produce a direct biological
effect. A smell of food or a sound signifying danger can elicit a strong
response without immediately affecting the organism’s biology. This second
type of responsiveness, called “sensitivity,” that is, an ability to respond to
signals carrying biologically significant information, was considered by
Leontiev the most basic manifestation of psyche.
Since the inception of sensitivity there have been two main lines of
development of organisms in biological evolution. The first line is the
development of the ability to maintain basic life support processes such as
digestion. The second line is development of the ability to interact with the
environment which results in the acquisition of new perceptual, cognitive,
and motor functions and organs, such as senses, a nervous system, and
limbs.
Having identified the most basic form of psyche, Leontiev went on to
trace the development of progressively more advanced forms of psyche
caused by dialectical contradictions between organisms and their
environments. Changes in the environment, on the one hand, and
acquisition of more sophisticated forms of interaction with the environment,
on the other hand, were considered a driving force behind the development.
The emergence of psyche itself was, according to Leontiev, caused by
a radical change in the life conditions of biological organisms: a transition
from living in a homogeneous “primordial soup,” in which life originally
appeared, to living in an environment consisting of discrete things, or
objects. Objects are characterized by relatively stable combinations of
properties. Some of these properties, which are of direct biological
importance, are systematically associated with other properties, which are
not. The latter, therefore, can be used as signals indicating the former. As a
result, organisms that develop sensitivity, an ability to respond to signals,
have better chances of survival in an environment composed of distinct
objects, compared to organisms that do not have such ability.
Leontiev discerned three stages of the development of psychological
functions in animals: the sensory stage, the perceptual stage, and the
intelligence stage. At the sensory stage, organisms recognize and respond to
isolated attributes of the environment. Most animals are at a more
advanced, perceptual stage of development, at which they can recognize
whole objects and their relations. For instance, when they see that an
obstacle between them and a food is removed, they go to the food directly.
Some animals, such as apes, reach the highest stage in Leontiev’s hierarchy
of animal psyche, the intelligence stage. These animals are able to develop
sophisticated mental representations of problem situations in which they are
immediately engaged.
The concept of activity plays a crucial role in Leontiev’s analysis of
the evolution of psyche. The concept was introduced as fundamental as
soon as Leontiev set out to discover the earliest manifestations of mind:
I will call the processes of activity the specific processes through which a live, that is,
active relation of the subject to reality is realized, as opposed to other types of
processes (Leontiev, 1981).

Immediately after introducing the concept of activity Leontiev

introduced the concept of the object of activity. He emphasized that
activities cannot exist without their objects: “Any activity of an organism is
directed at a certain object; an ‘objectless’ activity is impossible” (Leontiev,
1981).
A distinction between mental and non-mental phenomena required that
both be defined in terms of a general overarching concept and then
differentiated within this frame of reference. Activity was chosen by
Leontiev to play the role of such a basic, fundamental concept. He used this
concept to describe the transition to more advanced forms of life associated
with mental phenomena, as
. . . a transition from a “pre-mental” activity, that is, activity, which is not mediated by
a representation of objective reality, to activity, which is mediated by a representation
of objective reality. . . . Therefore, psyche, mental activity, is not something that is
added to life but a special form of life, inevitably emerging in the process of its
development (Leontiev, 1981).

Therefore, two historical threads can be discerned in Leontiev’s

analysis of the evolution of psyche. The first thread is a long-term project
dealing with developmental transformations of the mind. The second thread
is a development of the key analytical tool used by Leontiev in his historical
analysis, the concept of activity. The meaning of the concept was
substantially elaborated upon when Leontiev went on to discuss the
development of the human mind, a radically new phase in the evolution of
the psyche.
For animals, mind is an organ of survival; it increases the organism’s
fitness regarding its natural environment, just as claws or fur do. Through
assuring the survival of the fittest, evolution stimulates the development of
mind in animals. However, with the emergence of human culture and
society, biological evolution ceased to be the main factor in the
development of the mind. The survival of an individual living in society
depends on economics, politics, and technologies, rather than fitness
understood as the ability to adapt the body to the natural environment.
Accordingly, the nature of the human mind is determined not only by
biological factors but also by culture and society.
Leontiev specifically analyzed three aspects of culture that have a
fundamental impact on the mind: tools, language, and the division of labor.
 In his analysis of the role of tools and language, Leontiev by and large
followed the approach established by Vygotsky. Tools were considered a
vehicle for transmitting human experience from generation to generation.
The structure of a tool itself, as well as learning how to use a tool, change
the structure of human interaction with the world. By appropriating a tool,
and integrating it into activities, human beings also appropriate the
experience accumulated in the culture. Elaborate practices revolving around
creating, organizing, and maintaining tools are vital accomplishments of
human beings, differentiating us from other animals.
The use of tools is closely related to other factors influencing the
development of the mind, namely, the use of language and the division of
labor. Continuing the cultural-historical tradition of using the tool metaphor
for understanding the role of signs and symbols in the functioning and
development of the mind, Leontiev focused on the role of tools in the
development of concepts. Concepts have a general meaning applicable to a
variety of concrete situations and experiences. Over the course of their
individual development (ontogenesis), human beings learn and appropriate
concepts already existing in their cultures. The concepts, however, have not
always been there. They are a result of the positive and negative
experiences of people who contributed to the development of the culture.
One might ask: How did the first concepts, first generalizations emerge
from individual human experience? Leontiev suggested a hypothesis that
may provide an answer, at least a partial one, to this question.
Early tools, such as a stone axe, could be used for a variety of
purposes. They could, for example, cut trees, kill animals, or dig soil. The
objects to which an axe was applied could be soft or hard. Some objects
were easy to cut, some required substantial time and effort, and some were
so hard that it was impossible even to leave a dent on them. Despite these
differences, all the objects could be compared against the axe, which was an
invariant component of all encounters. Therefore, the axe could be
considered an embodied standard of softness/hardness. Using the axe for
practical purposes to do something with an object in the environment had
the side effect of placing the object on a “scale” of softness/hardness. This
scale emerged as a generalization of the individual experience of using the
tool. Since people followed shared, culturally developed procedures of
creating and using tools, the tools could serve as an embodiment of abstract
concepts based on the generalization of both individual and collective
experience.
Another implication of the use of tools for historical development of
the human mind is their role in the emergence of the division of labor. Even
though the division of labor was the result of a variety of factors, it was
tools that assured the development of the sophisticated forms of
coordination typical of collaborative work and other socially distributed
activities. On the one hand, the production of tools became a separate
activity that required specialized skills. Individuals who possessed these
skills were likely to make tools for other members of a social group, which
was probably one of the first examples of the division of labor. On the other
hand, tools and other artifacts (such as clothes) could facilitate coordination
of individual contributions to collective activities by signifying the social
status and specific responsibilities of their owners.
The division of labor, according to Leontiev, had a special significance
for the development of the mind. When a person participates in a socially
distributed work activity, his actions are typically motivated by one object
but directed to another one. Let us consider Leontiev’s canonical example
of activity, a collective activity of primordial hunting. Individuals
participating in a collective hunt may be divided into two groups: one group
scares the animals and makes them move in a certain direction by beating
the bushes (the beaters), and another group hides waiting to ambush the
animals directed towards them by the beaters (the ambushers). Both groups
are motivated by food. However, for beaters, the immediate goal is not to
get closer to the animals and kill them but, on the contrary, to scare them
away. These hunters are motivated by their share of the whole catch which
they expect to receive as a reward for their contribution to the hunt. Taken
out of the context of collective activity, the actions of the beaters appear to
have no meaning.
A non-coincidence of objects that motivate an activity and objects at
which the activity is directed is a characteristic feature of human activity. In
animal activities, motivating objects and directing objects basically
coincide. If the activity of an animal is directed towards an object, this
object typically immediately corresponds to a certain need. In human
activities, however, the link between what an individual is doing and what
they are trying to attain through what they are doing is often difficult to
establish. The structure of human activities, as opposed to the structure of
the activities of other animals, can be extremely complex. The main reason
behind this, according to Leontiev, is a transformation individual activities
undergo as a result of participation in the division of labor. When an
individual takes part in a socially distributed activity, the difference
between motivating and directing objects is forced upon the individual by
the organization of the socially distributed activity. The division of labor
makes dissociation between motivation and direction of activity an
objective attribute of an individual’s interaction with the world.
Internalization of this dissociation changes the structure of individual
activities. Individual activities can potentially develop a complex
relationship between motivating and directing objects.
In a way, the historical evolution of mind illustrates the “universal law
of psychological development” formulated by Vygotsky for individual
development: new functions and attributes first emerge as distributed
between the individual and their social environment (that is, as inter-
psychological ones) and then become appropriated by individuals (that is,
become intra-psychological ones). The division of labor makes attaining a
goal within a collective activity meaningful (or at least rewarded) even if
the relation of the goal to the object of the activity as a whole is not
straightforward. The ability to connect the current focus of one’s efforts
with their ultimate intended outcome and to integrate indirectly related
actions first emerges in history as supported by the division of labor. At this
stage of development, the ability to coordinate intermediate goals can only
exist as distributed between people. For instance, the beaters in the hunt
above could perform their roles without understanding the actual meaning
of the actions. Arguably, however, collective activities can be carried out
much more successfully if contributing individuals understand the
relationship between intermediate and ultimate outcomes. Therefore, the
division of labor creates conditions for dissociation between motives and
goals. This dissociation first emerges in collective activities and then in
individual activities and minds.
THE STRUCTURE OF HUMAN ACTIVITY
NEEDS, MOTIVES, AND THE OBJECT OF ACTIVITY
So far we have discussed “activity” in a broad sense, as subject-object
interaction in general. In this broad meaning, any process of a subject’s
interaction with the world can be qualified as an activity. However, in
activity theory, the term activity also has another, narrower meaning.
According to this meaning, activity refers to a specific level of subject-
object interaction, the level at which the object has the status of a motive. A
motive is an object that meets a certain need of the subject. The reason the
notion of motive plays a key role in the conceptual framework of activity
theory will be evident from the discussion below.
Let us consider more closely the idea of subject-object interaction
taking place at several levels simultaneously. Obviously, a whole range of
objects with which a subject is interacting can be discerned at any given
moment. For instance, depending on the angle from which a person is
viewed, they can be described as hitting a key on a computer keyboard,
typing a word, or writing a novel. Accordingly, the objects the person is
dealing with include the key, the word, and the novel, all at the same time.
These objects constitute a hierarchy, where objects located higher in the
hierarchy define larger-scale units of subject-object interaction. The top-
level object in the hierarchy, according to activity theory, has a special
status. The reason the subject is attempting to attain this object is the object
itself. The object is perceived as something that can meet a need of the
subject. In other words, the object motivates the subject, it is a motive.
Activity in a narrow sense is a unit of subject-object interaction
defined by the motive. It is a system of processes oriented towards the
motive where the meaning of any individual component of the system is
determined by its role in attaining the motive.
Therefore, according to activity theory, the ultimate cause behind
human activities is needs. Needs can be viewed, according to Leontiev,
from either a biological perspective or psychological perspective. From a
biological perspective a need is an objective requirement of an organism.
Having a need means that something should be available in the environment
to satisfy the requirement. Organisms may need food, water, air, or
temperature maintained in an appropriate range, in order to survive and
reproduce. From a psychological perspective, a need is a directedness of
activities towards the world, towards bringing about desirable changes in
the environment. It is expressed in particular behavior and subjective
experiences.
At the psychological level, needs can be represented in two different
ways. Needs which are not “objectified,” that is, not associated with a
concrete object cause general excitement which stimulates the search for an
object to satisfy the need. The subject may experience discomfort (“a need
state”). However, this discomfort cannot direct the subject and help satisfy
the need, except in stimulating an exploratory behavior that is not directed
at anything in particular. When a need meets its object, which, according to
Leontiev, is “a moment of extraordinary importance” (Leontiev, 1978), the
need itself is transformed, that is, objectified. When a need becomes
coupled with an object, an activity emerges. From that moment on, the
object becomes a motive and the need not only stimulates but also directs
the subject. An unobjectified need can be defined as a raw state of need
looking for an object, while an objectified need means that the subject
knows what it is looking for.
Therefore, the most fundamental property of needs, according to
Leontiev, is that they cannot be separated from objects. The defining feature
of unobjectified needs is that they are seeking for objects, while objectified
needs manifest themselves through their objects. The very concept of
activity includes its orientation towards an object, an object that both
motivates and directs the activity. The object of activity, which is defined by
Leontiev as the “true motive” of an activity (Leontiev, 1978), is the most
important attribute differentiating one activity from another.
Human needs are different from other animals’ needs. Psychological
needs of other animals are related to biological needs, and their activities
are directed towards objects associated with biological needs. However,
even in non-human animals, biological needs do not directly determine the
objects of the needs. When selecting objects of their activities, animals can
rely on a wide range of attributes which are only indirectly related to
biological properties. This ability provides obvious advantages. For
instance, a lion that attacks slower antelopes might survive longer than a
lion that attacks indiscriminately. The more developed an animal, the more
its psychological needs are influenced by the structure and affordances of
the environment, and the more difficult it is to trace the behavior of the
animal to underlying biological needs.
In humans, some psychological needs are clearly based on biological
needs. However, even these needs are transformed by culture and society
which provide incentives, guidance, and constraints on selecting the objects
of the needs and the means of satisfying the needs. More importantly,
human psychological needs are not limited to needs based on biology. The
relationship of human psychological needs to biology is difficult or
impossible to trace, and sometimes this relationship appears to be negative
rather than positive. Some cultural practices and many rituals do not seem
to be healthy, sensible, or even pleasant.
Activity theory neither proposes a taxonomy of potentially effective
needs (as do some psychological approaches, e.g., Maslow (1968)) nor does
it provide strict criteria to differentiate motives from non-motives. Human
needs are always developing, so it is impossible in principle to give a
definitive description of all possible needs and motives. What activity
theory does propose is a conceptual framework to bridge the gap between
motivation and action. Activity theory provides a coherent account for
processes at various levels of acting in the world.

ACTIVITIES, ACTIONS, AND OPERATIONS

Activities are not monolithic. Each activity can be represented as a
hierarchical structure organized into three layers. The top layer is the
activity itself, which is oriented towards a motive. The motive is the object,
which stimulates, excites the subject. It is the object that the subject
ultimately needs to attain.
However, human activities are typically not directed straight towards
their motives. As in the hunters example above, socially distributed
activities are characterized by dissociation between motivating and
directing objects. Complex relations between these two types of objects are
present in society and are a fact of life for people who live in the society.
Participation in social activities makes it necessary for individual subjects
to differentiate between (a) objects that attract them and (b) objects at which
their activities are directed.
In other words, an activity is composed of a sequence of steps, each of
which may not be immediately related to the motive. According to activity
theory terminology, these steps are actions. The objects at which they are
directed are called goals. Goals are conscious; human beings are typically
aware of the goals they want to attain. In contrast, we may not be
immediately aware of motives. Leontiev observed that making motives
conscious requires a special effort of making sense of “indirect evidence,”
i.e., “. . . motives are revealed to consciousness only objectively by means
of analysis of activity and its dynamics. Subjectively, they appear only in
their oblique expression, in the form of experiencing wishes, desires, or
striving toward a goal” (Leontiev, 1978).
Actions, in their turn, can also be decomposed into lower-level units of
activity, operations. Operations are routine processes providing an
adjustment of an action to the ongoing situation. They are oriented towards
the conditions under which the subject is attaining a goal. People are
typically not aware of operations. Operations may emerge as an
“improvisation,” as a result of a spontaneous adjustment of an action on the
fly. For example, when walking in a crowd, one can carry out elaborate
maneuvering to avoid colliding with other people and physical obstacles
without even realizing it. Another source of new operations is
automatization of actions. Over the course of learning and frequent
execution, a conscious action may transform into a routine operation. For
instance, some skills, which in experienced car drivers are apparently
operations, result from many hours of practice. When first learning to drive
a car, a novice may need to consciously focus on the procedure of, for
example, changing lanes. Changing lanes for inexperienced drivers can be
an action that requires total concentration and makes it impossible to be
engaged in any other activity (such as conversation). However, gradually
this action may become more and more automatic. Eventually a driver
reaches the phase at which changing lanes is done automatically and is
hardly noticed. The driver can now also engage in other simultaneous
activities.
 The separation between actions and operations according to their
orientation—respectively, towards the goal and towards the conditions in
which the goal is “given” to the subject—is relative rather than absolute.
Some actions are more directly related to the object of activity than others.
For instance, adding a new section to a draft document is clearly related to
the goal of writing a paper. However, accomplishing this goal may require a
range of auxiliary actions, more loosely related to the goal at hand. One
may need to respond to other people’s comments, learn new features of a
word processor, such as styles or “Track changes,” or find information in
physical or electronic archives. Therefore, the main criterion separating
actions from operations is that operations are automatized.
Levels of activity, shown in Figure 2.2, can transform into one another.
Automatization is an example of transformations between actions and
operations. Over the course of practice actions can become automatic
operations. The opposite process is “de-automatization,” the transformation
of routine operations to conscious actions. Such a transformation can take
place, for instance, when an automatized operation fails to produce the
desired outcome and the individual reflects on the reasons for the failure
and on how the operation can be “fixed.” Typically, a new, more
appropriate procedure is devised which first is carried out as a conscious
action and then becomes an operation. Transformations can also take place
between activities and actions. For instance, a goal subordinated to another,
higher-level goal can become a motive, so that a former action acquires the
status of an activity.

Figure 2.2: The hierarchical structure of activity. Activities are composed of actions,
which are, in turn, composed of operations (left). These three levels correspond,
respectively, to the motive, goals, and conditions, as indicated by bi-directional arrows.
FUNCTIONAL ORGANS
An activity-theoretical concept of special relevance to HCI is the concept of
functional organs. The origins of this concept can be traced back to earlier
works, for instance, those by the Russian physiologist Ukhtomsky, who
defined functional organ in a broad sense as: “Any temporary combination
of forces which is capable of attaining a definite end” (Ukhtomsky, 1978,
cited in Zinchenko, 1996). Leontiev (1981) elaborated this concept by
introducing the idea of functional organs as created by individuals through
the combination of both internal and external resources. Functional organs
combine natural human capabilities with artifacts to allow the individual to
attain goals that could not be attained otherwise. For instance, human eyes
in combination with eyeglasses, binoculars, microscopes, or night vision
devices, constitute functional organs of vision that may significantly extend
human abilities.
To create and use functional organs, individuals need special kinds of
competencies (Kaptelinin, 1996b). Tool-related competencies include
knowledge about the functionality of a tool, as well as skills necessary to
operate it. Task-related competencies include knowledge about the higher-
level goals attainable with the use of a tool, and skills of translating these
goals into the tool’s functionality.
One implication of the notion of functional organs is that distribution
of activities between the mind and artifacts is always functional. It only
takes place within subsystems that have specific functions, more or less
clearly defined. Such subsystems, whether distributed or not, are integral
parts of the subject, who makes ultimate decisions on when to use
functional organs and whether they have to be updated, modified, or even
completely abandoned. Therefore, the subject must have competencies of a
special type to create and use functional organs efficiently. These
competencies, which can be labeled as meta-functional, provide integration
of functional organs into the system of human activities as a whole
(Kaptelinin, 1996b). In contrast to tool-related competencies and task-
related competencies, meta-functional competencies are not directly related
to employing functional organs for reaching goals. Instead, they deal with
the coordination of multiple goals that can be attained via one action, with
limitations of functional organs (for instance, which goals cannot be
achieved with them), and with side effects, maintenance, and
troubleshooting.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LEONTIEV’S ACTIVITY

THEORY: AN OVERVIEW
The main ideas and assumptions of activity theory, outlined above, have
been elaborated by Leontiev into a set of more specific notions, claims, and
arguments. Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006), building on Wertsch (1981),
identify the following principles:
Object-orientedness. The principle of object-orientedness states that all
human activities are directed toward their objects and are differentiated
from one another by their respective objects. Objects motivate and direct
activities, around them activities are coordinated, and in them activities are
crystallized when the activities are complete. Analysis of objects is
therefore a necessary requirement for understanding human activities, both
individual and collective ones. This principle (which bears some similarity
to phenomenology’s notion of “intentionality;” see Dourish, 2001) is
directly related to the very concept of activity as a “subject-object”
relationship. A subject’s interaction with the world is structured; it is
organized around objects5. Objects have their “objective” meanings,
determined by their relationship with other entities existing in the world
(including the subject himself or herself). In order to meet their needs, the
subject has to reveal the objective meaning of the objects and act
accordingly.
The principle of object-orientedness applies differently to animals and
human beings. Animals live in a structured world of natural objects which
are material and mostly have direct positive or negative meanings and
values, provide affordances for action, and so forth. Human beings live in a
predominantly man-made world, where objects are not necessarily physical
things: they can be intangible, but they can still be considered “objects” as
long as they objectively exist in the world. For instance, the objects of
learning a new language or making a company profitable are impossible to
touch, physically weigh, or measure with a ruler. However, the grammatical
structure of a language or profit margin of a company does not exist merely
in a person’s imagination. Rather, they are “facts of life,” which need to be
faced and dealt with. “Objective” is understood in activity theory in a broad
sense as including not only the properties of things that can be directly
registered with physical instruments, but also socially and culturally defined
properties.
Hierarchical structure of activity. Human activities, according to
Leontiev, are units of life which are organized into three hierarchical layers
(see Figure 2.2). The top layer is the activity itself, which is oriented toward
a motive, corresponding to a certain need. The motive is the object that the
subject ultimately needs to attain.
For instance, in some cultural contexts people reaching a certain age
need to learn how to drive a car (and get a driver’s license); it is a general
prerequisite of being a fully functional member of society. Learning how to
drive a car is an activity organized as a multilayer system of sub-units
directed at getting a driver’s license.
Actions are conscious processes directed at goals which must be
undertaken to fulfill the object. Goals can be decomposed into sub-goals,
sub-sub-goals, and so forth. For instance, one may decide to enroll in a
driving school, purchase instructional materials, make a schedule of
theoretical lessons and practice sessions.
Actions are implemented through lower-level units of activity called
operations. Operations are routine processes providing an adjustment of an
action to the ongoing situation. They are oriented toward the conditions
under which the subject is trying to attain a goal. People are typically not
aware of their operations. For instance, a driving school student taking
notes during a lecture might be fully concentrated on traffic rules rather
than the process of writing. Operations emerge in two ways. First, an
operation can be a result of step-by-step automatization of an originally
conscious action (e.g., over time, the action of changing lanes may
transform into a routine operation that does not require any conscious
control). When such operations fail, they are often transformed into
conscious actions again. Second, an operation can be a result of
“improvisation,” a spontaneous adjustment of an action on the fly, e.g., in
an emergency situation the driver may act “instinctively,” without thinking.
The three-layer model only applies to human activities. Complex
relationships between motives (i.e., what motivates the activity) and goals
(i.e., what directs the activity) are a characteristic feature of humans. While
animals usually act directly toward the objects that motivate them (e.g.,
food), humans often attain their motives by directing their efforts to other
things. For example, however hungry they might be, diners usually grab a
menu rather than the first available food upon entering a restaurant.
Considering human activity as a three-layer system opens up a
possibility for a combined analysis of motivational, goal-directed, and
operational aspects of human acting in the world, that is, bringing together
the issues of Why, What, and How within a consistent conceptual
framework (Bødker, 1991).
Realizing this possibility in a concrete study may, however, be
problematic. Revealing the ultimate motives of a person or the fine-grain
structure of automatic operations may prove to be difficult, if not
impossible. This limitation of Leontiev’s three-layer model as an analytical
tool can be overcome by employing an expansive “actions first” strategy.
This strategy involves starting analysis from the actions layer which
relatively easily yields itself to qualitative research methods. In particular,
people are usually aware of their goals and can report or express them in a
certain way. Then the analysis can be expanded both “up,” to progressively
higher level goals and, ultimately, motives, and “down,” to sub-goals and
operations. The expanding scope of analysis may not cover the entire
structure of the activity in question but be sufficient for the purposes of the
task at hand (see also Kaptelinin et al., 1999).
Mediation. Arguably, mediation is the primary dimension along which
human beings differ from other animals. It is mediation that has made homo
sapiens such a successful species. While we do not have sharp claws and
thick fur, we compensate by employing mediating artifacts such as
hammers, knives, and warm clothes. In fact, all key distinctive features of
humans, such as language, society, and culture, the production and use of
advanced tools, all involve mediation. They represent different aspects of
the same phenomenon, that is, the emergence of a complex system of
objects and structures, both material and immaterial, which serve as
mediating means embedded in the interaction between human beings and
the world.
 Activity theory inherits its special interest in mediation from the
approach that made the most fundamental impact on Leontiev’s framework
—that is, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical psychology. Vygotsky’s ideas
concerning mediation were explicitly incorporated into the conceptual
framework of activity theory but placed in a somewhat different theoretical
context. Since the overall focus of Leontiev’s approach was on activity,
understood as the purposeful interaction of active subjects with the
objective world, rather than particular higher mental functions and their
ontogenetic development, activity theory is specifically concerned with
tools as means that mediate activity as a whole, rather than signs, that is,
means that mediate specific mental operations.
Tool mediation allows for appropriating socially developed forms of
acting in the world. Tools reflect the previous experience of other people
accumulated in the structural properties of tools, such as their shape or
material, as well as in the knowledge of how the tool should be used (see
Figure 2.3). Therefore, the use of tools is a form of accumulation and
transmission of social, cultural knowledge. Tools not only shape the
external behavior; as discussed below, through internalization, they also
influence the mental functioning of individuals. For instance, a person’s
cognitive map of a city may depend on whether or not the person is a car
driver. A software developer understands the abstraction of layers of a
software architecture. This understanding is actionable, and he or she does
not need to be looking at a diagram of an architecture to use the knowledge
in a design task.
Internalization and externalization. This principle states that human
activities are distributed—and dynamically re-distributed—along the
external/internal dimension. Any human activity contains both internal and
external components. Sometimes external components are hardly visible:
they can be reduced, for instance, to eye movements or even patterns of
brain activation, but they are always present. The concepts of
internalization and externalization refer to the processes of mutual
transformations between internal and external components of an activity.
In the process of internalization, external components become internal.
For instance, young children often use their fingers for simple arithmetic,
but over time the use of fingers typically becomes redundant. An
inexperienced driver may speak aloud to remind himself of the “parallel
parking” procedure, but the need for speaking aloud disappears with
practice.
The process, opposite to internalization, is externalization—that is,
transformation of internal components of an activity into external ones. An
example of externalization is sketching a design idea.
Externalization is the basis of all human culture. It is a uniquely human
capacity. Tools motivate and enable externalization. The very existence of a
pencil incurs momentum for an artist to externalize something she
imagines. Tools excite and propel us. The capacities of a tool afford what is
entirely remarkable—a person’s thoughts, ideas, dreams, reasoning, change
to materially visible form. The artist herself reacts to what she draws,
perhaps altering it once she sees how it looks. She may choose to share the
drawing with others or abandon it. Tools thrill us, and they therefore entail
morality because they will cause us to act. The tools we imagine and
construct alter us and the world through externalization.
In a similar vein, an activity which is initially socially distributed that
is, distributed between several people can be appropriated by a person (i.e.,
the learner) and then carried out individually. The opposite process is the
transformation of an individual activity into a socially distributed one, e.g.,
when a person initiates a group project or other people intervene to help an
individual to carry out her actions (Cole and Engeström, 1993). The
dimensions of internal/external and individual/social are similar to one
another in many respects and are closely related. For instance, when an
internal activity is externalized, it also affects the individual-collective
dimension: for instance, tools and signs employed in externally distributed
actions can be shared and thus enable social distribution of the actions.
Development. Finally, activity theory requires that activities always be
analyzed in the context of development. Development in activity theory is
both an object of study and research strategy. As an object of study,
development constitutes a complex phenomenon that can be analyzed at
different levels. Examples of the levels of analysis include studying the
development of various forms of animal activity in biological evolution
(phylogenesis), emergence of specifically human forms of activity in social
history (sociogenesis), individual development throughout various phases
of life (ontogenesis), and appropriation of particular artifacts (instrumental
genesis, Rabardel and Bourmaud, 2003).
As a research strategy, development requires that any object of study
should be analyzed in the dynamics of its transformation over time6.
Accordingly, activity theory prioritizes formative experiments over
traditional controlled experiments. Formative experiments combine active
intervention in the system or processes under study with monitoring of
developmental changes caused by the intervention. At the same time,
activity theory does not prescribe a single method of study since different
types and levels of development require different methods or combinations
of methods.
The principles of activity theory, described above, comprise an
integrated system: they represent different aspects of human activity as a
whole. Systematic application of any of the principles makes it necessary to
eventually engage some (or even all) of the others. For instance, analysis of
the effects of certain technologies on human cognition from an activity
theoretical perspective would require identifying the variety of activities, as
well as their respective objects within which the technologies are being
employed (object-orientedness), the role and place of the technologies in
the hierarchical structure of each of these activities (hierarchical structure),
how the activities are being re-shaped by using the technologies as
mediating means (mediation), and how transformations of external
components of activity are related to corresponding changes of internal
components (internalization and internalization). And all these phenomena
should be analyzed as they unfold over time (development).

ENGESTRÖM’S ACTIVITY SYSTEM MODEL

Leontiev’s approach is predominantly concerned with activities of
individual human beings. While Leontiev explicitly mentions that activities
can be carried out not only by individuals but by social entities (collective
subjects), too, he does not systematically explore the structure and
development of collective activities and does not present a conceptual
model of collective activity (which can probably be explained, at least
partly, by the ideology-related limitations and constraints that were imposed
on studies of social phenomena in the USSR). A model of collective
activity, the “activity system model” (a.k.a. “Engeström’s triangle”) was
proposed by the Finnish educational researcher Yrjö Engeström (1987). The
model is a result of a two-step extension of Leontiev’s original concept of
activity—that is, activity understood as “subject-object” interaction—to the
case of collective activity.
The first step, the most significant revision of Leontiev’s notion of
activity as subject-object interaction, was adding a third element,
“community,” which resulted in a structure comprising a three-way
interaction between “subject,” “object,” and “community.” This structure
can be represented as a down-pointing triangle (see Figure 2.3). Second, it
was suggested that each of the three particular interactions within the
structure is mediated by a special type of means. Concrete mediational
means for these interactions, according to Engeström, are: (a)
tools/instruments for the subject-object interaction (as also posited by
Leontiev), (b) rules for the subject-community interaction, and (c) division
of labor for the community-object interaction. In addition, the model
includes the outcome of the activity system as a whole: a transformation of
the object produced by the activity in question into an intended result,
which can be utilized by other activity systems. The complete model is
shown in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.3: Three-way (mediated) interaction between subject, object, and community
(adapted from Engeström, 1987).
Figure 2.4: Engeström’s activity system model.

As an example, consider the activity of an interaction designer who

works as a member of a design team redesigning the user interface of a
computer application. The object of the activity is the existing interface, and
the expected outcome is a new interface. The interaction designer employs
a variety of tools in her work on the object, including physical objects (e.g.,
computers), software (e.g., development environments), and methods and
techniques (e.g., personas). The community comprises other members of
the team such as interaction designers, the project manager, and technicians.
The interaction designer’s relation with the community is mediated by
explicit and implicit rules, e.g., taking part in project meetings, and
receiving certain financial rewards. Furthermore, producing the outcome of
the activity system as a whole, a new interface, is the responsibility of the
entire design team: the effort of the interaction designer is a part of a larger
effort of the team. Therefore, the work of the interaction designer needs to
be coordinated with the work of other team members. This coordination is
achieved by employing a division of labor, which mediates the relation
between the design team and its object.
When studying complex real-life phenomena, applying one activity
system model is often not sufficient. Such phenomena need to be
represented as networks of activity systems. For instance, redesigning the
user interface of a computer application can be a part of an even larger-scale
effort, involving several design teams, directed at developing a new version
of the computer application in question. Redesigning the user interface in
that case would provide a partial outcome which would need to be
integrated with outcomes of other activity systems (e.g., a team developing
new functionality of the product) to achieve the overarching purpose of a
network of activity systems.
A key tenet of Engeström’s framework is that activity systems are
constantly developing. The development is understood in a dialectical sense
as a process driven by contradictions. Engeström identifies four types of
contradictions in activity systems:
1. First-level contradictions are inner contradictions of each of the
components of an activity system: subject, object, community,
instruments, rules, and division of labor. For instance, the mediating
means used by a physician include various medications which, on the
one hand, have certain medical effects, and, on the other hand, are
products with associated costs, legal regulations, and distribution
channels. This double nature of medications may affect the specific
decisions made by the physician. For instance, the cost of the best
possible medication may be prohibitive, which may make a physician
choose a more affordable alternative.
2. Second-level contradictions are those that arise between the
components of an activity system. For instance, a certain type of
medical treatment may be unsuitable for certain patients.
3. Third-level contradictions describe potential problems emerging in the
relationship between the existing forms of an activity system and its
potential, more advanced object and outcome. The advancement of an
activity system as a whole may be undermined by the resistance to
change, demonstrated by the existing organization of the activity
system.

4. Finally, fourth-level contradictions refer to contradictions within a

network of activity systems, that is, between an activity system and
other activity systems involved in the production of a joint outcome.
For instance a positive effect of surgery (i.e., a partial outcome
produced by the activity system of a surgical department of a hospital),
can be undermined by an improper follow-up rehabilitation (i.e., a
 partial outcome produced by the activity system of another
organization, such as an outpatient physical therapy clinic).
The activity system model has been employed in a range of
disciplines, especially education and organizational learning (see, e.g.,
CRADLE, Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning,
n.d.). See Spinuzzi (2011) for a critique of Engeström’s evolving notions of
the concept of object.

CURRENT DIVERSITY OF ACTIVITY THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORKS
The approaches developed by, respectively, Leontiev and Engeström are
currently the most common variants of activity theory. The approaches
provide complementary perspectives on human activities. Leontiev’s
variant mostly focuses on individuals understood as social creatures acting
in social contexts. Engeström’s activity system model, on the other hand, is
predominantly concerned with collective activities carried out by groups
and organizations whose activities are implemented through contributions
—i.e., actions—of individual subjects.
In addition, a number of other current frameworks are partly
influenced by activity theory and partly built upon other approaches. Such
frameworks include, for instance, instrumental genesis (Rabardel and
Bourmaud, 2003), genre tracing (Spinuzzi, 2003), and the systemic-
structural activity theory (Bedny and Harris, 2005).

2Leontiev himself usually referred to his framework as “activity approach”

(“dejatelnostnyj podhod”), or “activity approach in psychology,” rather than “activity
theory” (cf. Mescherjakov and Zinchenko, 2003).
3This warning, in our view, should be extended to the widespread use of the distinction
between technical and psychological tools, assigned to Vygotsky, in current research.
This useful conceptual distinction is difficult to practically apply to concrete, real-life
cases. The same object can be a technical or a psychological tool depending on the
way it is used. For instance, a knife is a technical tool when it is used to slice a
sausage but it is a psychological tool when it is used by a robber to frighten his victim
into submission. Therefore, the border between technical and psychological tools is
 not clear-cut. They should rather be considered two different aspects of the same
artifact, often intertwined in a complex way. For instance, a pen is a technical tool in
the sense that it is used to change a thing (e.g., to write a note on a piece of paper) but
at the same time it is a psychological tool, since it is used to write a message intended
to affect people.
4Internalization was the object of study in an empirical investigation conducted by
Leontiev under Vygotsky’s supervision (Leontiev, 1981). The study employed a
method called “double stimulation,” created by Vygotsky specifically for studies of
the development of higher psychological functions. The main feature of this method
is presenting the subject with two sets of stimuli. The first, primary set is comprised
of stimuli used by the subject to solve an experimental task. The task could be—as it
was in Leontiev’s study—remembering a set of words (stimuli) for subsequent recall.
The subjects are also provided with another, secondary set of stimuli as auxiliary
means for performing the task. Stimuli of the secondary set are signs referring to the
stimuli of the primary set. The aim of using the method of double stimulation was to
compare problem solving with and without secondary sets of stimuli. The design
allowed for the analysis of the impact of mediation on subjects’ performance in
various cognitive tasks.
In the study conducted by Leontiev, the double stimulation method was employed as
follows. Subjects of three age groups—pre-school children, middle school children,
and university students—were presented with lists of words with the instruction to
remember the words. After the presentation the subjects were asked to recall as many
words as possible. The lists of words constituted primary sets of stimuli. Each group of
subjects was divided into two sub-groups corresponding to two experimental
conditions. In one condition the words were the only stimuli presented. In another
condition the subjects were given a secondary set of stimuli, a stack of picture cards,
which they could use as mnemonic tools. For instance, to remember the word “dinner,”
a subject could select a picture of an onion and lay it away. Layaway cards could be
used by the subjects during the recall phase of the experiment.
It was found that performance in each of these conditions improved with age and that
using cards generally improved performance. However, the difference between
recalling words with and without cards was manifested differently in the three age
groups. In pre-school children, the performance was rather poor and approximately at
the same level in both conditions. In middle school children the usage of cards resulted
in a marked increase in performance level compared to the no-cards condition.
University students showed a high level of performance in both conditions, and the
difference between the conditions was small.
The data were interpreted by Leontiev as an indication that children of the three age
groups were at different levels in the development of mediated memory. Pre-school
children had not yet developed mediation capabilities, so they could not benefit from
using the cards. That was why there was little difference between their performance in
the two conditions. Middle school children could successfully use the cards as external
mediational tools and that was the reason they could substantially benefit from using
the cards. Finally, the university students, according to Leontiev, reached similar levels
of performance in both conditions because their memory was mediated whether or not
they used the cards. When they could use the cards, they relied on them as external
mediators. When no external mediators were provided, they used internal mediators,
which were almost as effective as external mediators.
Empirical data from this and other studies employing the double stimulation technique
(Vygotsky, 1982) supported the view of a re-structuring of mental processes as a
result of development in a cultural environment. The re-structuring follows the stages
of (a) no mediation, (b) external mediation, and (c) internal mediation resulting from
internalization.
5There is a linguistic problem that makes adequate translation of Leontiev’s notion of
“object” from Russian to English somewhat complicated. In Russian there are two
words with similar but distinct meanings: objekt and predmet. Both refer to
objectively existing entities, but the notion of predmet typically also implies a
relevance of the entity in question to certain human purposes or interests. Similar
linguistic distinctions can be found in German and some other languages. Leontiev
deliberately referred to the object of activity as predmet rather than objekt. However,
this distinction is usually lost in English translation since both words are translated as
“object.”
6The developmental research perspective adopted by activity theory is often associated
with dialectical logic, a concept and framework introduced by the Russian
philosopher Evald Ilyenkov (Ilyenkov, 2008, see Engeström et al., 1999). Dialectical
logic is different from traditional formal logic in how it views contradictions and
development. Traditional logic invariantly considers contradictions as indicators of
problems that need to be addressed. Contradictions are to be eliminated in order to
create a perfectly logical system (either an abstract one, such as a model or theory, or
a more concrete one, such as the management structure of an organization). In
addition, traditional logic is typically not concerned with development; perfectly
logical systems do not need to be changed and may stay as they are indefinitely.
Dialectical logic starts from a different assumption. It is assumed that dialectical
development—that is, development driven by contradictions—is a fundamental aspect
of all imaginable objects of study and therefore should be taken into consideration in
analysis. While some “superficial” contradictions can be eliminated in a relatively
straightforward way, there are also other, deeper contradictions that cannot be simply
resolved once and for all. Any solution intended to resolve such contradictions is
temporary, for it gives rise to new contradictions.
An example of a contradiction of this type, well known to HCI researchers, is the
contradiction between tasks and artifacts. The notion of “task-artifact cycle” (Carroll,
1991) implies that the ultimate balance between tasks and artifacts cannot be achieved.
A new artifact changes the task for which it is developed which means that another
artifact needs to be developed to support the new task, and so on and so forth.
Dialectical logic posits that analysis of the object of study which only deals with how
the object exists at the present time is insufficient. Instead, analysis of the
development trajectory of the object—preferably, starting from an initial undeveloped
form (i.e., a “germ”)—is claimed to be critically important for understanding how the
object has come to be what it is, and what contradictions can be expected to drive its
further development.
 CHAPTER 3

Agency

The term “agency” is used in many different ways. We examine its place in
activity theory and suggest some extensions to notions of agency. The
nature of agency is an old and ongoing debate. It has been reintroduced into
contemporary social theory by actor-network theory (Latour, 1993; Law
and Callon, 1992; see Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). We will suggest that
different kinds of entities can exhibit different kinds of agency depending
on circumstances. In other words, agency is not a simple property of a
subject or thing. It is an important concept for HCI and activity theory
because of the principle of mediation. Entities mediate according to the
kinds of agency they are capable of.
For Leontiev, the primary type of agency was the agency of individual
human subjects. We define human agency as the ability and the need to act.
The most basic meaning of the “ability to act” is the ability to produce an
effect, following standard dictionary definitions. However, this meaning is
too broad for our purposes. If “acting” is understood as just producing an
effect, then the ability to “act” is a property of anything that exists, either
physically or ideally; any object, process, or idea. A narrower definition of
acting is producing an effect according to an intention. The “need to act”
encompasses biological and cultural needs. It is important to note that we
use this distinction exclusively to refer to the origins of needs. Of course, all
human needs are social in the sense that the way they are manifested and
experienced is determined by the individual’s development in social
context. The criteria of what an individual considers healthy, attractive,
prestigious, and so forth, are determined by the immediate and general
cultural environment. The meaning of objects as things that can potentially
meet the needs of an individual is established socially. For instance,
religious norms can prescribe that potentially edible things are not
perceived as food.
 However, humans are animals too, and, as any animals, must meet
their biological needs. Throughout biological evolution, a driving force of
development has been meeting the basic needs of organisms. By “biological
needs” we understand the needs that ensure survival and reproduction. The
invisible evolutionary background of human agency means that biological
needs are deeply ingrained in the nature of human agency. On the other
hand, the human adaptation of culture created a powerful new set of needs.
Cultural needs have the potential to change rapidly and to proliferate in
number far beyond basic biological needs.
Intentions are driven by biological needs to ensure survival and
reproduction, and by cultural needs established socially. Humans
themselves are the realization of cultural needs expressed in the intentions
of others. We embody cultural needs as a result of our activity and the
activity of others who act on us. The surgeon’s hands, the attorney’s mind,
the athlete’s body—such agencies are the result of object-oriented activity.
Those who act on us to make us who we are include family, friends, peers,
teachers, coaches, and co-workers, as well as the wider culture.

A TYPOLOGY OF AGENTS
To gain a more nuanced view of agency, we move beyond the usual binary
schemes. As can be seen in Table 3.1, we avoid binaries such as human-
machine agency (Rose et al., 2005) and human-material agency (Pickering,
1993). Too much is obscured in such schemes. We theorize different kinds
of entities that can be agents, as well as the possibility of delegating agency.
We consider several dimensions as a basis for categorizing agents more
flexibly. We argue that under varying circumstances, different kinds of
agents may exhibit similar agencies.
Table 3.1 first makes a distinction between agents that are living or
non-living. In Chapter 2 we established that not any entity is a subject. A
subject lives in the world and has needs. Non-living things do not have
needs.
Next, the table distinguishes between human and non-human living
beings according to the kinds of needs they have. Humans have basic and
cultural needs. Other living beings have basic needs only. We distinguish
two kinds of non-human living beings: those that are the product of cultural
needs and those that are not. The category “non-human living beings
(cultural)” includes organisms such as domestic animals, plants, fungi, live
vaccines, clones, and genetically engineered plants and animals. In other
words, there are organisms that have evolved outside human intention and
those that have been cultivated, cultured, husbanded, bred, cloned, or
genetically modified. The latter result from some human activity motivated
by a cultural need.
The dimension “realize intentions of humans” denotes things (natural)
and things (cultural). Things that result from a human intention produced in
a cultural milieu are artifacts. A speed bump slows a driver because it is
designed to do so. A fence keeps in the sheep, a vaccine deters disease, a
field of pumpkins is harvested for jack-o-lanterns. By contrast, an ocean
current moves sea life with an agency that has no intention. A volcano
erupts and covers a town with ash, a comet explodes. Effects ensue without
intention.
The final column in Table 3.1 is social entities. Social entities are
comprised of entities from all the other columns. They produce effects, and
they can be said to have cultural needs (if they are to survive and reproduce
themselves, certain things have to happen), and they realize human
intentions. But because they are a composite of the other four entities, they
have perhaps changed to a different level of abstraction for which the
dimensions of the table are insufficient. However, the notion of macro-
actors in actor-network theory suggests that social entities have “interests”
and can be seen as agents in their own right. In actor-network theory, large-
scale entities—for example, the European Union, Silicon Valley, the space
program, high-tech, organized crime—can be said to have interests.
The cells in the leftmost column of the table identify different kinds of
agencies. Rows 3-5 identify dimensions of these agencies. Row 3 indicates
that all agents can produce effects. Row 4 indicates that when producing
effects, some agents realize biological needs. Row 5 indicates that when
producing effects, some agents realize cultural needs. Row 6 indicates that
an agent may realize the intentions of (other) humans. For example, the
Mars probe realizes the intentions of the scientists who built it. A
schoolchild learning to read realizes the intentions of parents and teachers
(and her own intentions in most cases).
 Table 3.1: Forms of agency

Living beings are a special kind of agent in striving to meet needs in

the world, engaging other entities as they do so in a patterned way. A plant
with its biological needs reaches for the sun, produces chlorophyll. Its
flowers attract bees of a particular kind, its seeds are eaten by certain birds
who scatter them in the woods.
Leontiev searched for a concept to describe the context in which mind
evolved, considering “life,” but rejecting it as too general. He settled on
activity, defining it in terms of a subject’s relation to a world in which it
attempts to fulfill its needs. Non-living things are inert in not having needs.
Phenomenologists have also noticed this, observing that things do not
“care” as Heidegger (1962) proposed. Subjects engage in activity because
they care about what will happen to them in the future (see also Emirbayer
and Mische, 1998). This caring is the condition of the tiniest one-celled
animal struggling for a mite of algae, to humans attempting to solve the
most difficult scientific or social problems. In her novel Housekeeping,
Marilynne Robinson (1980) put it poetically: “And there is no living
creature, though the whims of eons have put its eyes on boggling stalks and
clamped it in a carapace, diminished it to a pinpoint and given it a taste for
mud and stuck it down a well or hid it under a stone, but that creature will
live on if it can.”
Agency should not be considered a monolithic property that is either
categorically present or absent. Producing effects, acting, and realizing
intentions, while potentialities of certain kinds of agents, vary within the
enactment of a specific activity. Extending the notion of agency beyond
human subjects may appear a deviation from the asymmetry of the subject
and the object endorsed by activity theory. However, we propose a
combination of (1) a strict subject-object dichotomy (and resulting
asymmetry) and (2) the notion of levels of agency, that is, understanding
agency as a dimension rather than a binary attribute.
With this in mind, we can differentiate between types, or levels of
agency. Our analysis, as depicted in Table 3.1, includes:
Need-based agency. Human beings have both biological and cultural
needs. To meet their needs they form intentions and act on the intentions.
Similar types of agency are manifested by social entities (even though they
do not have biological needs) and higher animals (even though they do not
have cultural needs).
Delegated agency. Various things and living beings can be said to
realize intentions, but these intentions are delegated by somebody or
something else. For example, when winning a race, a race horse realizes the
intentions of its breeders. At other times, though, the horse realizes its own
intentions—grazing in the pasture or resting in its stall. Human society is
organized such that humans delegate the actions needed to realize intentions
to other humans. Sometimes the subject receiving the delegated intentions
accepts them as her own, and other times she carries out the necessary
actions based on her own different intentions. Marx’s notion of “alienated
labor” is the classic case of separating a subject’s actions on behalf of
someone else and her own intentions. The worker performs the actions to
receive a wage but has no interest in, for example, the quality of a product
save as it affects her wage.
Conditional agency. Anything and anyone can produce unintended
effects. The Russian winter of 1812 did not target Napoleon’s army but
undoubtedly contributed to its defeat. Truck drivers do not intend to create
obstacles on highways but they repeatedly do. Even without having an
intention, something or somebody may constitute a force—or condition—to
be reckoned with.

ARTIFACTS
Artifacts are special agents that are the product of cultural needs. Humans
have gained some control over our needs through the design and
deployment of artifacts that embody our intentions and desires. We are able,
in the lifetime of a single individual, to create new solutions to meet needs
as conditions change. As we saw in Chapter 2, artifacts empower people
through the use of technical and psychological tools. Activity theory
conceptualizes the potency of human agency in part through the principle of
mediation: tools empower in mediating between people and the world.
People “appropriate” tools in order to empower themselves to fulfill their
objects (Wertsch, 1998). The principle of mediation clearly indicates that
things have agency, because if they did not, they could not act as mediators.
In a vivid historical example, Zinchenko (1996) observed, “Communist and
fascist symbols acquired such fanatic energy that . . . they nearly devoured
the great cultures of Russia and Germany.”
Functional organs are a special kind of mediator. Zinchenko (1996)
discussed the cellist Rostropovich and the quality of mediation provided by
his cello. When asked in an interview about his relationship to his cello,
Rostropovich replied:
There no longer exist relations between us. Some time ago I lost my sense of the
border between us. . . . In a portrait [by the painter Glikman] . . . there I was—and my
cello became just a red spot at my belly . . . (quoted in Zinchenko, 1996).

A functional organ is a different relation between human and thing

than nodes in an actor-network (see Latour, 1993). A functional organ
brings human and thing closely together, in a relation more intimate than a
system of like nodes. A red spot at the belly is an apt metaphor for how we
experience our most cherished technologies. As noted in Chapter 2,
functional organs are subsystems that are integral parts of a subject who still
decides when to use functional organs and whether they have to be altered
or even abandoned.
Actor-network theory speaks of artifacts as having “delegated
competences” (Latour, 1993). Interests are “translated” between elements in
the network, that is, performances and competences move back and forth
between nodes in a symmetrical network. For example, a user’s competence
at typing URLs can be translated to a computer which can guess at the
character string intended by the user, if a few clues are provided, and
thereby complete the typing for the user.
In the scheme proposed in Table 3.1, delegation flows from humans to
the other kinds of agents (including other humans). But in actor-network
theory a non-human entity might delegate to a human. So a cell phone
demands fresh batteries. It enlists the human to replace batteries by beeping
when the batteries are low. In activity theory, there is no delegation from
thing to human; the human decides that in order to use the mediating
technology, she will supply the batteries. The human has other possibilities.
She can turn off the beeper, or can throw away the cell phone, or seek out a
new cell phone with superior battery technology. At any time she can resist;
she can modify; she can alter her relationship to the technology based on
her intentions. The cell phone, by contrast, does what it was programmed to
do; it is without desire or intention. The cell phone’s agency is manifest in
its ability to beep but it is an agency designed and delegated by humans.
Artifacts can be designed to produce effects to replace human labor at
the level of operations and actions. Leontiev (1978) observed that
operations are destined to become functions of machines, and indeed the
proliferation of such machines created since the Industrial Revolution has
continued unabated (as the Luddites also foresaw). Automatic gearboxes,
electric mixers, dishwashers, and text completion are examples of artifacts
taking on some tedious operations.
At the level of actions, programmable artifacts have proved efficient
and even intelligent. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, Jacquard
looms driven by punched cards created elaborate fabrics (and provided the
inspiration for the design of Babbage’s Analytical Engine as well as
Hollerith’s Census Machine used to conduct the U.S. Census in 1890). A
modern washing machine can carry out an impressive sequence of actions.
And of course computers are the exemplar of programmable artifacts,
interpreting languages that permit flexible sequences of actions (and
operations) on a new scale of complexity.
While mediators can be designed to autonomously assume human
operations and actions, they cannot, in themselves, create meaningful
activities. Artifacts cannot decide what they want, they cannot form an
intention, or say what is meaningful and what is not.
Though we can’t think of any actual artifacts with intention or desire,
such artifacts are alive and well in the human consciousness. The Golem,
Frankenstein’s monster, the robot Maria in Lang’s Metropolis, HAL in
2001, and the Terminator, to name a few, inhabit a narrative universe in
which cyborgian desires exert powerful influences in human life. These
humanoid characters, while compelling, appear to be rather obvious
projections of human desires and fears. A more likely source of artifacts
with intention may be research in artificial life, an area to which we will
look for interesting future developments (Reynolds, 1987).
Mediators empower in ways specified by human designers, but the
agency of artifacts may also be conditional, producing unintended effects.
Winner (1977; 1986) has explored the unintended consequences of
technology in several empirical investigations. Shaffer and Clinton (2006)
pointed to the studies of Postman (1993) and Tenner (1997) in observing
that “[things] have a way of exceeding or changing the designs of their
makers.” Unintended consequences of artifacts may be of value to people
(such as the discovery of penicillin) or they may be tragic (such as an
explosion at a nuclear power plant).
CONCLUSION
We identified different kinds of agents according to whether they are driven
by the demands of life and whether they embody cultural needs. Table 3.1
suggests an interesting tension. Every agent is capable of producing effects
for which there is no intention. The more cultural things (living and non-
living) we have in the world, things that appear as a result of human design
and intention, the more possibilities we introduce for conditional agency,
that is, for new kinds of unintended effects.
 CHAPTER 4

Activity and experience

INTRODUCTION

Having examined the fundamental principles of activity theory and

reflected on their relation to the concept of agency, we move to another
notion popular in HCI discourse: experience. We analyze what experience
might mean for HCI using activity theory as a lens. Experience was an
essential aspect of the formulation of the earliest questions that drove
activity theory. The very rationale for employing activity as a foundational
concept in Leontiev’s framework was an attempt to resolve a common
dilemma faced by most psychological theories, that is, the need to choose
between two mutually exclusive objectives: (a) providing a rich and
nuanced understanding of mental phenomena and subjective experience,
and (b) establishing psychology as a field of “truly scientific” research,
based on rigorous methods and conceptually consistent with the bodies of
knowledge accumulated in other sciences such as biology.
As the history of psychology shows, these two objectives are difficult
to combine. Detailed studies of subjective human experiences often lack
rigor and reliability, while natural science-style approaches (e.g.,
behaviorism) are often reductionist in the sense that they effectively exclude
the mind as such from their definition of the object of psychological study
(and, instead, study something else, e.g., behavior). According to Leontiev,
using activity as a basic category of psychological analysis opens up a
possibility to develop a new type of psychological theory which would
combine the rigor of natural sciences with a non-reductionist perspective on
human mind.
Building on Rubinshtein’s principle of the “unity and inseparability of
consciousness and activity”(Rubinshtein, 1946), Leontiev introduced
object-oriented activity as a unit of analysis in psychology in order to define
the context within which mental processes and subjective phenomena
emerge and acquire their meaning. The context of activity, therefore, should
be analyzed to properly understand the nature of subjective phenomena.
This strategy was considered a way to ensure that human experience would
remain an object of psychological study (and not be “reducted away”),
while providing a solid basis for its systematic, rigorous, scientific analysis.
The underlying idea of Leontiev’s project in psychology as a whole
was to study mental processes as an inherent, organic, and necessary facet
of activity, that is, need-based, object-oriented interaction between the
subject and the world. Recognizing mental processes and subjective
experiences as an essential aspect of an activity meant that they were
considered as embedded in a system of causal relations within the activity,
rather than as merely epiphenomena, a “shadow” of other processes that
actually determine the course of the activity. Conceiving psychological
phenomena as embedded in activity also meant that the main aim of
psychological analysis should be to understand the specific role and place
of subjective phenomena in activity as a whole.
Very roughly, the research program undertaken to complete Leontiev’s
project can be broken down into three more specific lines of study, each
having its own objective. First, it was necessary to elaborate the concept of
activity, specify the meaning of the concept, and develop an analytical
framework that would support concrete studies of particular activities. The
second objective was to investigate two-way causal interrelationships
between mental processes and other (“non-psychological”) facets of
activity, and understand the relations underlying their mutual impacts and
transformations. Third, attaining the first two objectives would constitute
prerequisites for achieving the aim of advancing theoretical and empirical
exploration into traditional problems of psychology and providing new
insights into the nature and variety of mental processes and subjective
phenomena.
The outcomes of pursuing these three objectives were quite different in
terms of their relative success. The first line of exploration can be
considered highly successful. The concept of activity as being object-
oriented, purposeful, mediated, hierarchically organized, social, and
developing, was, either wholly or partly adopted in a wide range of studies
in various disciplines. Most notably, it was the main inspiration for the
development of Engeström’s activity system model (Engeström, 1987).
The work along the second line of explorations can be qualified as
generally successful. As discussed in Chapter 2, a number of important and
influential insights about how the structure and dynamics of activity are
related to subjective phenomena were formulated in activity theory. These
insights were based on ideas which were both adopted from Vygotsky (e.g.,
internalization) and Rubinshtein (e.g., unity and inseparability of
consciousness and activity) and developed by Leontiev himself (e.g., the
structural similarity of internal and external activities). The impact of these
insights was, however, somewhat more limited than that of Leontiev’s
framework for the analysis of the structure and basic properties of activity.
The overall impact of the third line of exploration, however, appears to
be not as significant as the impact of the first two. Experimental and
conceptual studies of specific mental processes and subjective phenomena,
conducted by Leontiev, are generally less known and less influential
compared to his theoretical work focusing on the concept of activity and the
relationship between activity and mind. With some notable exceptions (e.g.,
Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1998), activity theory has not been used outside
Russia as a framework for psychological studies of mental phenomena. For
the most part, when used internationally, activity theory was adopted in
other areas than psychology (e.g., CRADLE, Center for Research on
Activity, Development and Learning, n.d.), and the specifically
psychological aspects of the theory were often “lost in translation” as less
relevant to the concerns of a respective area.
The selective adoption of activity theory concepts has also been the
case in the field of HCI. When the theory was introduced as a conceptual
foundation for the second-wave, “post-cognitivist HCI” (Bødker, 1991; see
also Kaptelinin et al., 2003), it was found relevant and useful for HCI
research mostly because it brought in the concepts of tool mediation and the
hierarchical structure of activity, and because it emphasized the centrality of
social context and development. These ideas were taken up owing to their
relevance to second-wave HCI which was essentially concerned with
understanding—and addressing—the needs for creating technological
support for purposeful, mostly work-related, activities. Activity-theoretical
analyses of mental processes and phenomena, such as sensation, perception,
memory, and consciousness, were largely left out during the adoption as
less relevant.
However, recently the concerns and priorities of HCI research have
undergone significant changes. The importance of understanding subjective
phenomena which are induced by, or otherwise related to, the use of digital
technologies, has become a central issue in HCI. In the last decade
conceptual frameworks specifically dealing with subjective phenomena
such as emotional design (Norman, 2004) and technology as experience
(McCarthy and Wright, 2004), have emerged. The concept of “experience”
has become an increasingly important object of research in conceptual
explorations (Forlizzi and Battarbee, 2004), experimental studies
(Hassenzahl, 2003), and practice (Buchenau and Suri, 2000). At the time of
this writing, “experience” is one of the most common terms in the field and,
in a sense, an emblem of current HCI. The recently established “Human
Centered Informatics” series, of which this book is a part, already features
several recent titles on “experience” and “engagement.” The theme of the
CHI 2012 Conference was “It’s the experience”7. A recent CHI paper is
entirely devoted to a bibliographic analysis of empirical HCI research on
experience (Bargas-Avila and Hornbaeck, 2011).
These ongoing changes in the scope and foci of HCI research and
practice mean that the theoretical needs of the field are changing. While
understanding the structure and dynamics of purposeful human activities
and identifying possibilities for their advanced technological support
remain important issues, there is currently also marked interest in
frameworks that can provide an explanation of why and how certain
subjective phenomena are taking place in situations surrounding the use of
interactive technologies. In line with this current trend, in this chapter we
discuss the potential of activity theory as a conceptual tool for analyzing
experience in the context of HCI.

ANALYSES OF SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA IN ACTIVITY

THEORY
Analysis of subjective experiences was a major concern in the work of
Vygotsky and Rubinshtein, the two psychologists who made the most
substantial impact on Leontiev’s activity theory. Vygotsky (1978) was
especially interested in how people acquire the meaning of culturally
developed semiotic systems, and emphasized the central role of social
interactions in the process. In a voluminous (but still unfinished)
manuscript, entitled “The teaching of emotions,” Vygotsky criticized the
prevalence of Cartesian mind-body dualism in psychological theories of
emotions of that time and called for bringing in non-Cartesian philosophical
perspectives (he specifically mentioned Spinoza), that would allow
psychologists to analyze different aspects of emotions, such as subjective
phenomena and physiological processes, within a single coherent
framework (Vygotsky, 1983).
In line with his principle of unity and inseparability of consciousness
and activity, Rubinshtein (1946) maintained that experience should not be
separated from action. He observed that
Those who deliberately look for experience, find emptiness. But let a person immerse
himself in an action—a deep, real-life action—and he will be flooded with experience.
[. . .] Experience is both a result and prerequisite of action, either internal or external.
Mutually interpenetrating and supporting one another, they constitute a true unity, two
interrelated sides of the coherent whole, – that is, human life and activity.

Leontiev himself can be credited with the development of several

concepts intended to explain the nature of certain mental phenomena. In his
analysis of the emergence of psyche in biological evolution he proposed
that the first, most elementary subjective phenomenon, that of sensation, is
directly linked to the ability of an organism to react to signals. By signals he
meant those stimuli which are not in themselves important for the survival
of the organism, but indicate the presence of important stimuli (e.g., the
smell of food indicates that food might be around).
Another idea, first expressed as early as in the 1940s (Leontiev, 1944),
was that there is a causal link between the structure of activity and the
content of consciousness. More specifically, it was posited that people are
conscious of the objects at which their activity is immediately directed at a
certain moment. For instance, if a student writes an essay and concentrates
on how to formulate an idea, she is aware of the idea, but not the spelling of
the words she is writing. When the focus of activity changes (e.g., to
checking the essay for typos), the content of consciousness changes
accordingly.
A wide range of activity-theoretical studies, conducted by both
Leontiev and other Russian psychologists, dealt with perception. Perception
was understood as an active process carried out through “perceptual actions
and operations” directed at the object of perception. Leontiev proposed the
“replication” (or “likening”) hypothesis to explain how perceptual actions
may contribute to the development of the image of an object. According to
this hypothesis, external components of perception, such as eye movements
(in the case of vision) or hand movements (in the case of haptic perception)
in the process of exploring an object become adjusted to an object’s
properties (e.g., follow its shape) and in doing so produce an “imprint,” if
an imprecise one, of the object, which serves as a representation of the
object in the perceptual system. This hypothesis was tested in experiments
in which Leontiev and his colleagues attempted (and succeeded) to form
perfect pitch in children by having the participants not only differentiate,
but also vocalize sounds of different pitch (Leontiev, 1981).
As noted in Chapter 2, activity theory understands emotions as direct
indicators of the status of an activity as a whole. Objects or events that have
or may potentially have significant impact, either positive or negative, on
attaining the motive of an activity are “marked” by emotions, to make sure
a swift action can be taken, if necessary. Emotions do not disclose the
reasons why they occur, so sometimes people do not easily understand why
they experience a certain emotion.
Since human actions are often poly-motivated, people may experience
unanticipated or mixed emotions if the outcome of an action is positively
related to one of its motives but negatively related to another one. Leontiev
(1978) illustrates this situation with the example of a “bitter candy.” He
describes a study in which children were rewarded with a candy for
successfully solving the experimental task. One participant cheated to get
the reward, and she received the candy. However, the candy did not make
her happy. Instead, the girl broke in tears when she got it.
The most explicit and systematic attempt to provide an activity-
theoretical account of subjective experiences was made by Leontiev (1978)
in his notion of the structure of individual consciousness. Leontiev
identified three key components of consciousness: meaning, personal
meaning, and the “sensorial fabrics of consciousness.” Meanings are the
standard, socially shared meanings of objects and events which we need to
understand in order to communicate with other people. Personal meanings
are the ways socially shared meanings are related to our motives, goals,
hopes, and fears. Finally, the “sensorial fabrics of consciousness” are the
images brought to us by our senses.
During the last years of his life, Leontiev was working on the
development of an activity theoretical account of how the world is
subjectively experienced by human beings in their everyday life. This work
remained unfinished. A sketch of some of his ideas about the “image of the
world” is presented in a posthumous article entitled “The psychology of
image”(Leontiev, 1979).
Therefore, over time activity theory has developed a number of
concepts and hypotheses about the nature of subjective experiences and
their relationship with the objective conditions of human life and activity.
For various reasons, however, the potential of these analytical tools has not
been fully exploited in concrete studies of mental phenomena.

ACTIVITY THEORETICAL VS. PHENOMENOLOGICAL

PERSPECTIVES IN HCI
The turn to experience in HCI can be directly linked to the changing
practices of the use and design of interactive technologies in society at
large. Over the last decade or two, interactive technologies have become
ordinary consumer products, not bound to predetermined workplace
contexts. Therefore, purchasing decisions are increasingly determined not
only by the functionality of a product but by other factors as well, such as
appearance, prestige, and so on (Nelson and Stolterman, 2003). In many
popular niches (mobile phones, cameras, laptops, tablets) a variety of
available products provide more or less the same functionality, so
consumers can choose a product by taking into account their personal
preferences and the prospective context (or contexts) of use. The success or
failure of a product critically depends not only on its utility and usability,
but also on whether or not customers like the product (or even more so,
whether or not they like it more than other competing products). Therefore,
it is critically important to understand how to design interactive products
that ensure “good user experience.” The practical importance of developing
a thorough understanding of the meaning of user experience and ways to
support it with appropriate designs has been, arguably, a key motivation
behind the growing interest in “experience” in recent HCI research.
Kuutti (2010) observes that HCI studies of user experience are for the
most part empirical, with relatively little focus on theory. More efforts are
invested in collecting and generalizing empirical evidence with the aim of
operationalizing the concept of experience (e.g., identifying different
attributes and dimensions) compared to attempts to understand the meaning
of the concept and its place within a larger conceptual framework. While
acknowledging the importance of empirical studies, Kuutti concludes his
reflections on the prevalence of purely empirical studies of experience in
nowadays HCI by saying:
. . . I feel that there should also be a complementary conceptual and theoretical debate
on the issue, and this is currently lacking.

According to Kuutti (2010), post-cognitivist HCI theoretical

frameworks, including anthropological, phenomenological, and activity-
theoretical ones, should all be contributing to conceptual explorations of
experience. We concur with Kuutti that the grand challenge of
understanding experience in the context of HCI requires a joint large-scale
investigation, conducted from multiple theoretical perspectives. In what
follows we tentatively explore the prospects of how activity theory can
contribute to such a collaborative effort. In order to do so we contrast
activity theory to phenomenology, a theoretical approach that guides much
of current HCI research on experience. The discussion below builds on our
previous analysis (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006) and specifically deals with
phenomenologically inspired HCI research (e.g., Dourish, 2001; Fällman,
2003; Svanaes, 2000) rather than phenomenology in general.
As we argued elsewhere (Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006), there are many
deep conceptual similarities between activity theory and phenomenology.
Like other post-cognitivist theories such as distributed cognition (e.g.,
Hollan et al., 2000) and actor-network theory (e.g., Callon, 1986), they are
highly critical of Cartesian mind-body dualism and maintain that there is a
fundamental unity of the mind and the world. Another basic idea shared by
most post-cognitivist theories is that technology plays a vital role in human
life.
In addition, both activity theory (Leontiev’s version) and
phenomenology, as opposed to some other post-cognitivist theories, are
primarily interested in individual subjects. While distributed cognition and
actor-network theory, each in its particular way, define their objects of
analysis in terms of supra-individual entities (respectively, information-
processing units comprising people and artifacts, and actor networks)
activity theory and phenomenology retain a commitment to the individual
subject.
For them [i.e., activity theory and phenomenology] contextual analysis is a way to
reach a deeper understanding of individual human beings (Kaptelinin and Nardi,
2006).

One more common feature of activity theory and phenomenology is

that they both describe subjective experience in terms of meaning. Dourish
(2001) identifies three components of meaning: ontology, intentionality, and
inter-subjectivity. These components cannot be directly mapped to
Leontiev’s three facets of consciousness, described above (meaning,
personal meaning, and the sensorial fabric of consciousness) but the
emphasis on different aspects of meaning is apparent in both cases.
Despite these similarities, activity theory and phenomenology are
different in a number of important respects. The most obvious difference is
that activity theory is at its roots a psychological approach, while
phenomenology is a philosophical one. This raises the intriguing question
of whether or not it is possible at all to systematically compare these
approaches. Would it be comparing apples and oranges? In our view, there
are some reasons for caution, since the approaches represent different types
of inquiry and are developed within different traditions. However, we argue
that the theories can be meaningfully compared. Each theory has close
connections to both philosophy and psychology. Activity theory are heavily
influenced by German philosophy, primarily that of Marx and Hegel.
Phenomenology’s pedigree can be traced to psychology—in particular,
Brentano’s “act psychology”(Brentano, 1987)—which was one of the main
influences behind the very emergence of phenomenology. Therefore,
activity theory and phenomenology represent, respectively, a
philosophically inspired psychological approach and a psychologically
inspired philosophical approach. There are thus reasons to believe they are
similar enough to allow meaningful comparison.
A substantial difference between activity theory and phenomenology
lies in their respective conceptual points of departure. Activity theory
understands subjects as constituted by their inherently social activities that
transform both subjects and the world (objects). Activities, therefore, set
subjects apart and, at the same time, relate them to the world. Since subjects
have need-based agency and become what they are through their socially
and physically distributed activities, a detailed account of motivation,
development, and social-cultural context is a necessary precondition for
understanding subjects, their “acting-in-the world.” In phenomenology,
subjects are also assumed to be one with the world—their very existence is
defined as “being-in-the world”(Heidegger, 1962). However, the most
fundamental issue to be explored is formulated in phenomenology in terms
of how people make sense of their existence and how the world reveals
itself to subjects. The issue of how subjects come to exist in the first place
is not systematically analyzed, and neither are the specific needs and goals
underlying the active, engaged nature of “being-in-the-world.” In addition,
while the importance of the social context was recognized (and reflected),
for instance in the Heidegger’s notion of “being with,” which was
mentioned, but not elaborated upon (Polt, 1999), it did not become a central
issue in the phenomenological tradition until the notion of intersubjectivity
was introduced to phenomenology discourse (see Dourish, 2001).
These general theoretical differences between activity theory and
phenomenology imply that their perspectives on experience do not
coincide. Some disparities are discussed below in relation to the notion of
embodiment.
Embodied interaction is a phenomenologically inspired concept in HCI
proposed by Dourish (2001) (and expressed in somewhat different ways by
other researchers, as well). The underlying idea is that analysis and design
of interactive technologies should be based on the understanding of human
beings as entities that have physical and social attributes (i.e., “bodies”) and
are engaged in interaction with other entities in their physical and social
environments. The concept of embodied interaction was taken up in HCI
and interaction design, especially interpreted in a literal sense, as dealing
with human bodies—that is, taking into account the human body in
analysis, design, and use of technology (e.g., Hornecker and Buur, 2006;
Klemmer et al., 2006).
Baumer and Tomlinson (2011) observed: “While theoretically
plausible, most traditional accounts of AT [activity theory] and DCog
[distributed cognition] do not include the body as a mediating tool or as a
representational medium.” We concur with both claims. We agree that the
role of body in human interaction with the world has not been an object of
systematic analysis in activity-theoretical research, and we also agree that
such analysis is theoretically plausible. In our view, some ideas of activity
theory can be fruitfully applied in HCI to provide new insights about
physical embodiment. In particular, activity theory suggests that exploring
new opportunities for technological support of physically embodied
interaction should not be limited to understanding the needs and capabilities
of our “natural” bodies (even though that is also important). The
capabilities of our “natural” bodies, generally speaking, do not directly
determine how we interact with our physical environments. The capabilities
of our bodies are extended with artifacts, and our extended bodies open new
horizons of physical interaction with the world, such as moving in space at
the speed of 200 km/hour (body extended with a car) or jumping off a high
cliff (body extended with a hang glider). The risk of focusing too much on
natural bodies can be illustrated by the amazing accomplishments, both
physical (e.g., the Paralympics) and intellectual, achieved by some people
with severe physical disabilities. Therefore, the human body in a broad
sense should be considered as dynamic and developing. Of course the
limitations of our “natural” bodies should be seriously taken into account
when designing technology-rich environments. We would argue, however,
that it is equally important to explore possibilities for designing “extended
bodies” rather than merely adapting the environment to our current
limitations.
 Let us give a simple example illustrating our point. If someone’s sight
is not 20-20, there are two ways to help: change the environment to adjust it
to the limited capabilities of the person (e.g., increase the font size of the
text presented on an electronic display) or choose appropriate eyeglasses or
lenses to correct the person’s vision. In both cases one needs to examine the
person’s sight, but in somewhat different ways. In our view, currently the
studies of physical embodiment in HCI tend to adopt the first of these
approaches, while we believe that both approaches are important and need
to be explored in the field.
In this section we claimed that activity theory and phenomenology
have much in common, but that they have radically different conceptual
points of departure. Are we contradicting ourselves? Not really. Even
though activity theory and phenomenology do differ in their basic
perspectives, the directions of their development seem to point in the same
general direction. Activity theory starts with an analysis of the structure and
dynamics of social, mediated, purposeful activity, and aims to eventually
use it as a basis for revealing the richness of human experience. For
phenomenology the starting point is the richness of human experience, to
understand which the notions of being-in-the-world, equipment, and
intersubjectivity were introduced at various stages of post-Husserlian
development of the tradition (Dourish, 2001; Svanaes, 2000). In our view,
over time activity theory and phenomenology have become closer to one
another, even though this similarity is sometimes difficult to discern. Of
course, the approaches remain different, and they will always be. But the
discussion in this section suggests that in analysis of the complex
phenomena of human uses of technology, HCI has no choice but to address
the fundamental issues of meaning, value, identity, and justice (as discussed
in the concluding chapter of this book), and activity theory and
phenomenology (as well as, probably, other approaches) can be coordinated
within a larger scale theoretical inquiry.

7http://chi2012.acm.org/.
 CHAPTER 5

Activity-centric computing

Moving beyond discussion of theoretical precepts, we consider a body of

HCI work that takes “activity” as a grounding orientation. This work grows
out of dissatisfaction with the prevailing application-centric view of
computing in which it is up to the user to manage a set of individual
applications largely ignorant of one another. Even operations as simple as
cut and paste do not always work fluidly across different applications (for
example the user may have to take steps to harmonize fonts and other
formatting once a “paste” has been made, or it may be impossible to paste
an item at all). Applications have little idea what a user has been doing and
how they might, collectively, help. For example, when adding email
attachments, the most logical folder choice is the one the user was most
recently working in. But most mailers offer an unchanging generic choice.
While the importance of supporting meaningful human activities may
seem obvious, the rationale behind the design of many existing systems
reflects engineering priorities (it is easier to design applications without rich
knowledge of other applications). However, from the user’s perspective,
this approach has a major drawback: when applied in the design of digital
environments, it results in fragmented workspaces. Users often need to
combine several applications to complete a task: for instance, one may use a
web browser to get access to online resources, a word processor to compose
a document, and an email program to send the document to a colleague or
client. As a result, the user has to deal with several types of information
objects: web pages, documents, email messages, and so on (Kaptelinin and
Czerwinski, 2007). Desktop systems provide some support for integrating
diverse information objects such as displaying objects in windows that
share the same screen space and can be managed—moved, resized, closed
—in a uniform way. But the support is limited. Apart from some cross-
application shortcuts (such as opening a website in a browser by clicking its
URL in a text document), the user must find and handle information objects
of different types separately, even if these objects are directly relevant to the
task at hand and closely related to one another (Bardram et al., 2006;
Kaptelinin, 1996a). The lack of cross-tool (cf. Boardman and Sasse, 2004)
integration is especially evident when the user wants to save all task-related
information objects, such as documents, email messages, and URLs, as a
single archive. The functionality of a typical desktop system is not
sufficient to achieve that in a simple and straightforward way. Instead, the
user must devise a workaround (e.g., copy URLs and messages to a
document and then save all task-related documents in a separate folder).

A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF ACTIVITY-CENTRIC

COMPUTING
The limitations of application-centric computing were recognized early in
the history of HCI research, and a number of alternative underlying
principles for digital work environments have been proposed (Kaptelinin
and Czerwinski, 2007). One of the ideas, explored in several research and
development projects over the past few decades, was organizing digital
resources around meaningful, higher level tasks of the user—that is, the
idea of “activity-centric computing.” One of the oldest such designs, and
still admirable, was the ROOMS system which divided the digital
workspace of a desktop into special-purpose sub-areas or “rooms,” each
dedicated to a certain type of activity and each furnished with customized
sets of tools necessary to carry out the activity (Card and Henderson, 1987;
Henderson and Card, 1986). The design of ROOMS was influenced by
research carried out by Don Norman’s group at the University of California,
San Diego, in which special attention was paid to how technology users
switch between multiple activities (Bannon et al., 1983; Cypher, 1986).
As originally designed it was not widely used, but similar solutions
based on the same idea, known as “virtual desktops,” have been
implemented in a number of systems such as X window managers
(Windows Managers for X). ROOMs also influenced the conceptual design
of the Personal Role Manager which aimed at supporting switching
between a user’s different roles by providing selective access to collections
of resources associated with each of the roles (Plaisant and Shneiderman,
1994).
While the ROOMS system and the Personal Role Manager suggested
certain ways to alleviate problems with application-centric computing, they
did not go far enough to offer a general alternative to that approach. Such
an alternative, named Activity-Based Computing (ABC), was proposed by
Norman and his colleagues at Apple Computer in the 1990s (Norman,
1998). The key aim of ABC was to make sure that the user gains access to
resources necessary to carry out the activity at hand with little or no
overhead and minimal interference with other activities. This aim was to be
achieved by organizing various types of resources into activity-specific
“packages” supporting quick and easy switching between activities, and by
hiding unrelated items. Making it all possible required deep changes in the
computer industry’s approach to the development of interactive
technologies and, in particular, abandoning the application-centric
perspective.
According to Norman, it was not possible, for various reasons, to
achieve such a change in industry’s perspective at that time (Norman,
1998). But even though the immediate aims of the ABC initiative at Apple
Computer were not attained, the underlying ideas made a substantial impact
on work in activity-centric computing. In his more recent work Norman
himself returns to activity-based notions and argues that limitations of
traditional human-centered design can be overcome by adopting an activity-
centric approach (Norman, 2005, 2006).
In the last decade or so the number of systems and frameworks falling
in the general category of “activity-centric computing” has significantly
increased. The Task Gallery (Robertson et al., 2000) visualizes a collection
of task-specific workspaces as canvases hanging on the walls of a corridor.
The Kimura system (Voida et al., 2002, 2007) combines activity-specific
virtual desktops with an advanced overview of all ongoing activities of a
user. The system employs a large surface view (e.g., an image projected on
the office walls) to display a set of specially created, customized images for
each of the background activities of the user to represent the key objects
and current status of an activity. The images are dynamic; they
automatically visualize relevant processes and events, such as a document
being printed or a colleague becoming available for a face-to-face meeting.
Work on the Kimura system fed into the development of another activity-
centric system, Giornata, a personal computer environment in which a
virtual desktop is set up for each new activity (Voida and Mynatt, 2009).
The UMEA (User-Monitoring Environments for Activities) system
(Kaptelinin, 2003) monitors user actions and automatically creates
organized sets of pointers to various information objects (e.g., documents,
web pages, or contacts) employed by the user when working on the
currently active higher-level task (or “project”). When the user switches
between projects there is no need to search for relevant resources if they
were already found before. The user immediately gets access to the project-
specific lists of resources which are automatically created by the system.
The TaskTracer system (Dragunov et al., 2005) aims to provide a similar
kind of support, but the lists of resources are identified by analyzing the
history of user actions and making inferences about the items to include in a
task-specific list rather than by relying on the user’s explicit selection of a
certain task as “active.” Another approach to task management was
implemented in the TaskMaster system (Bellotti et al., 2003). The system
extends a conventional email program by adding a new type of information
object, “thrasks,” a cross of “threads” and “tasks.” A thrask includes all
task-related email messages, a rich source of task-related resources if a
substantial part of project management takes place in email. TaskMaster
also allows the user to add to thrasks other types of information objects
such as documents, and provides some personal information management
functionality.
Several systems which do not explicitly adopt an activity-centric
perspective can also be considered relevant. The underlying idea of the
Lifestreams system (Freeman and Gelernter, 2007) is to organize all
information objects in a user’s personal information space in a
chronological order and provide advanced tools for “extracting” subsets of
the whole sequence—or “sub-streams”—depending on the user’s current
needs. The sub-streams can be understood as digital traces of unfolding
activities, so that specifying sub-streams can be considered a particular case
of specifying certain activity contexts. The ContactMap system (Nardi et
al., 2002) organizes information objects available to a user of a desktop
environment around the user’s contacts, that is, people with whom the user
is communicating or collaborating. Since activities, or groups of activities,
can often be defined by specifying other people involved, the structure of an
individual ContactMap desktop indirectly reflects the structure of user’s
activities in general. The WorkspaceMirror system (Boardman and Sasse,
2004) addresses one of the most salient problems with application-centric
computer environment, the fragmentation caused by multiple information
hierarchies such as a file system, email mailboxes, and web browsers’
“favorites.” The WorkspaceMirror supports maintaining a consistent
information structure across several hierarchies, and thus alleviates
fragmentation. Even though WorkspaceMirror does not provide a complete
alternative to application-centric computing, it does take a step toward
creating more activity-centric workspaces by supporting the integration of
various types of information objects necessary to carry out the task at hand.
The GroupBar and Elastic Fabrics systems (Robertson et al., 2007), enable
grouping together diverse types of information objects by, respectively,
integrating several tiles in a Windows Task Bar into a single unit
(GroupBar) and moving progressively diminishing images of information
objects from the center to the periphery of the user’s work area. These
techniques allow for creating project-specific collections of resources and
managing entire collections when switching between activities.
Explorations into activity-centric computing in the last decade were
not limited to individual systems. Several research programs, each
comprising a range of empirical studies and technological developments,
dealt with activity-centric computing, most notably Project Aura at
Carnegie Mellon University (Sousa and Garlan, 2001), the Unified Activity
Management at IBM Research (Millen et al., 2005; Moran, 2005a,b; Moran
et al., 2005; Muller et al., 2004) and the Activity-Based Computing (ABC)
project at the IT University of Copenhagen (Bardram, 2005; Bardram et al.,
2006; Bardram, 2007, 2009; Christensen and Bardram, 2002).
Project Aura aims to develop a context-aware technology that would
act “on behalf of a user to manage resources, provide continuity, and
support high-level user tasks” by taking into account the users’ context
(e.g., location), tasks, and preferences (Sousa and Garlan, 2001). The
objective of the Unified Activity Management project is to use explicit
representations of human activities to develop work support systems that
would allow people to successfully manage—that is, set up, prioritize,
coordinate, and execute—individual and collective activities. “Activity” is
understood in a broad sense as “any coherent set of actions that we take
towards some end, be it specific or vague” (Unified Activity Management).
Explicit representations of both formal and informal work processes within
uniform activity structures (consisting, e.g., of a description of sub-
activities such as resources, deadlines, and dependencies), are envisioned as
activity management tools that would guide and support rather than control
and constrain their users. Such representations, integrated with potentially
needed resources, are expected to help organize work processes around
activities rather than tools or other artifacts. A collection of activity
structures presented in a consistent way would make it possible for a person
or group to manage the whole range of their activities. Finally, an important
advantage of explicit representations of activities is claimed to be a support
for the evolutionary development of activities over time through specifying
recurrent patterns of activities (Activity Patterns) and making cumulative
improvements in the patterns (Moran, 2005a,b; Moran et al., 2005). The
work within this project, as well as its companion Activity Explorer,
resulted in the development of tools such as Activity Tableau and empirical
studies of people working over extended periods of time in activity-centric
environments (Balakrishnan et al., 2010; Millen et al., 2005; Muller et al.,
2004).
Jacob Bardram and his colleagues address the issue of how to support
mobility and collaboration in human work activities in their work on
Activity-based Computing (Bardram, 2005; Bardram et al., 2006; Bardram,
2007; Christensen and Bardram, 2002). The solution explored within the
project is to break away from traditional application- and document-centric
computing and make computational activities, understood as aggregations
of “services, resources, artifacts, and users that are relevant for a real world
human activity,” first-class entities, explicitly represented in computer
systems (Bardram, 2009). It is argued that a computer infrastructure that
would make it possible for users to discover, create, suspend, save, and
otherwise manage computational activities should be based on the
following principles: (a) activity-centered resource aggregation (integrating
diverse resources needed to carry out an activity), (b) activity suspension
and resumption (providing means for handling activity switching and
interruptions), (c) activity roaming (providing consistent support for
activities, which unfold across different contexts and are carried out with
different computing technologies), (d) activity sharing (supporting
collaboration), and (e) activity awareness (making a system “aware” of the
current real-life context of the user) (Bardram, 2009). It should be
specifically emphasized that the core principles refer to computational
activities which should not be confused with human activities. As Bardram
(2005) explains, a computational activity
. . . does not model nor control real-world human activities. A computational activity
can be created and modified according to the desire of the user, and does not come
from models of work activities.

Bardram’s approach has been applied in the development of a number

of concrete technologies. A range of technologies have been designed to
support collaborative, mobile work of medical personnel in hospital
environments (Activity-Based Computing, n.d.). In addition, the approach
has also been implemented in the design of the Windows XP ABC system,
embedded in a conventional personal computing environment.

ACTIVITY-CENTRIC COMPUTING AND ACTIVITY

THEORY
As follows from the historical analysis in the previous section, activity-
centric computing is a general approach pursued from a variety of different
perspectives. Activity theory has been one such perspective—a number of
research and development explorations if the area of activity-centric
computing employed activity theory, at least partly.
The work on Activity Based Computing at Apple in the 1990s was
influenced by Bødker’s (1991), introduction of activity theory to HCI, as
well as Norman’s previous work employing some of the concepts
developed in Russian sociocultural tradition (1991). In particular, this
approach proposed an extended version of Leontiev’s hierarchical model
which was produced by adding the level of “tasks” (located between
“activity” and “action”) to the original three-level model (Leontiev, 1978,
1981).
The first version of the Kimura system (Voida et al., 2002) was
developed without a reference to activity theory, but later the work adopted
activity theory as a conceptual framework for both design and reflection
(Voida et al., 2007). More recent explorations into activity-centric
computing building on the work on Kimura system, such as design and
evaluation of the Giornata system (Voida et al., 2008; Voida and Mynatt,
2009) are explicitly informed by activity theory.
The development of the UMEA system (Kaptelinin, 2003) and the
range of technologies created within the Activity Based Computing project
at the IT University of Copenhagen (e.g., Bardram, 2005; Bardram et al.,
2006; Bardram, 2009) were, from the outset, inspired and guided by activity
theory. In these cases technological designs were direct results of previous
theoretical analyses and empirical studies of individual and collective
activities, mediated by computer technologies.
In addition, we can discern a variety of indirect uses of activity theory
in the area of activity-centric computing. These indirect uses include
considering relevant concrete design solutions and technologies informed
by activity theory (for instance, the systems, discussed above) without
taking into account the theory itself, and employing the theory as the point
of comparison when presenting and reflecting upon one’s own approach.
An example of the latter is a systematic comparison of the Unified
Activity Management framework and activity theory by Moran (2005a).
Moran observes that while his work was not specifically inspired by activity
theory, there are significant similarities between the frameworks: each
proposes a conceptual apparatus for understanding and “parsing” what
people do in their everyday life; each considers activities as hierarchically
organized and inseparable from their objects; and each emphasizes the
importance of understanding activities as developing over time. Moran also
points to a number of differences between the frameworks. Unified Activity
Management neither explicitly deals with motivation nor differentiates
between conscious actions and routine operations, and is more directly
concerned with formal process representations, interrelationships between
activities, and shared representations.
 In sum, while efforts such as the ROOMS system have not been
related to activity theory, it would be fair to say that a substantial amount of
work in activity-centric computing, especially in recent years, has been
influenced by activity theory in one way or another.

CURRENT ISSUES AND PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE

RESEARCH
Despite a sound rationale and relatively long history of exploration in HCI
research, activity-centric computing is yet to become a widely accepted
alternative to the currently dominant application-centric paradigm. Previous
work on activity-centric computing is characterized by significant progress,
but also reveals some issues that need to be addressed in future research.
This section discusses some of these issues, as well as potential ways of
addressing them (see also Bardram, 2005, for a related discussion).

A VARIETY OF PERSPECTIVES IN ACTIVITY-CENTRIC

COMPUTING
The discussion in previous sections suggests that activity-centric computing
is not a monolithic approach. Of course, there are basic features shared by
all activity-centric systems. These features include integration of task-
related resources (that is, cutting across different information hierarchies),
making it possible for the user to easily and safely switch between activities
(including stopping and resuming activities), and support for collaboration
(for instance, facilitating user’s communication with other participants of
collaborative projects).
However, beyond this set of basic features lie substantial differences
between concrete activity-centric technologies. One difference is between
systems that offer personal/private vs. shared workspaces. While most
systems discussed in this section (e.g., ROOMS, UMEA, Giornata) are
personal, others such as Unified Activity Management and Bardram’s
Activity-based Computing, predominantly provide shared environments. Of
course each approach serves legitimate needs, depending on the context.
The difference between personal and shared activity-centric systems
has specific implications for their design, as well as how they are
experienced by users. The most obvious distinction is related to privacy,
which is necessarily rather limited in the case of shared workspaces. Even if
a workspace does not record users’ activities for legal purposes (see
Bardram, 2005), it may still include some elements of monitoring the users
and revealing to other participants the details of activities, which the users
may not be willing to share. Less obvious but no less significant
implications relate to tentative externalization, control, and activity
representation.
Shared environments often make it difficult, and sometimes
impossible, for a person to try out several alternatives by tentatively
externalizing them and then choosing the best one. For instance, a personal
computer user may apply different designs to a set of presentation slides to
see which design looks best. In a shared environment, the user needs to
“check out” an information object or in some way prevent the propagation
of undesirable changes throughout the collective activity. This necessity
may have the undesirable side effect of preventing spontaneous tentative
externalization by individual users. Furthermore, collaborative activities
supported by shared activity-centric environments may be characterized by
a marked power difference among participants in which some participants
have less control over the environment.
Finally, while shared activity-centric systems require that activities be
explicitly represented, for personal systems it is not a necessary requirement
(even though personal systems can include explicit representations, as
well). An implicit representation of activities—e.g., describing a set of
relevant resources without explicitly specifying the goals, sub-goals,
deadlines, etc.—may be sufficient for a single user of a system. In case of
shared activities it may need to be supplemented with an explicit
representation (especially during a hand off, Bardram, (2005)) to ensure a
common understanding of the structure and status of an activity by different
participants.
The variety of activity-centric technologies that have emerged in HCI
suggests that instead of creating an “ideal” activity-centric system,
designers should aim at creating an activity-centric system which would be
a good fit for a particular type of context, such as hospitals, corporate
environments, personal computing, and so forth.
DESIGN CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
Current work on activity-centric systems indicates that there are a number
of remaining challenges to be addressed in the future.

Activity parsing
Integration of resources in activity-centric computing systems cuts across
different types of information objects, but not different activities. An
activity-centric system can only be useful if collections of resources, linked
to their respective activities, are kept separate from one another. In order to
ensure that information objects linked to different activities do not mix
together, a system should be able to map resources and other information to
specific activities.
The strategies employed in current activity-centric systems for
differentiating between separate activities can be divided into three
approaches: space-based, tag-based, and inference-based strategies.
Systems adopting the space-based approach such as ROOMS, the Task
Gallery, and Giornata, provide multiple workspaces (e.g., virtual desktops),
dedicated to particular activities or groups of activities. The user sets up a
dedicated space as an activity context; everything taking place in the space
is linked to the activity at hand, while information objects related to other
activities are not displayed at all. Switching between spaces indicates to the
system that the user is switching between different activities, which ensures
that events and objects corresponding to the different activities are not
mixed together.
Tag-based systems, such as UMEA or “project” labels in some
versions of Mac OS, allow the user to simultaneously work with
information objects belonging to different activities displayed in the same
workspace. The objects are linked to their respective activities logically, but
not necessarily spatially. Finally, inference-based systems such as
TaskTracer employ various types of indirect evidence to make an informed
guess about the resources the user might need to carry out the task at hand,
and provide convenient access to the resources at appropriate points in time.
 The main challenge for designing effective and efficient support for
activity parsing is finding a trade-off between the potentially conflicting
requirements of flexible integration, low overhead, and reliability. Space-
based systems reliably keep different activities apart, but when the user
needs to combine information objects from different activity contexts to
carry out the task at hand, it may be difficult because of the strict separation
between activity spaces. Tag-based systems allow for flexible organization
of resources linked to different activities, but maintaining tags may create
increased overhead. Inference-based systems may radically decrease
activity management overhead but are inherently inaccurate, or
“noisy”(Moran, 2005a) and therefore may not be reliable enough.
Relative strengths and weaknesses of different activity parsing
strategies may depend on various factors. For instance, the advantages of
space-based systems can only be enjoyed if large display surfaces, allowing
the user to simultaneously view and manage several activity-specific
workspaces, are provided8. Inference-based systems may be more reliable
when different activities are associated with non-overlapping sets of
resources compared to when the same resources are shared by several
activities. Understanding advantages and disadvantages of different activity
parsing strategies requires further research. An intriguing related issue is
possible ways to combine several strategies within a single system. One
such effort is the UMEA system, which allows the user to select one project
from a list and then automatically adds project tags to all resources
employed by the user, until the user switches to another project (or quits the
system). The underlying strategy can be classified as predominantly tag-
based but the system also employs some inference to minimize overhead.

Managing collections of diverse resources within an activity

Sets, or “packages,” of diverse information objects, linked to an activity,
should be presented to users in a consistent way to make it possible to view,
organize, integrate, and otherwise manage a whole set of activity-related
materials. Existing systems support such integration and coordination of an
activity-specific work context by creating a configuration of open windows.
However, such work contexts in traditional desktop systems are not
persistent and typically need to be restored when the person returns to the
activity at hand after a break.
The work on activity-centric systems has explored a number of
solutions that would allow the user to bundle diverse activity-related
resources together and manage them as one unit. The main direction is to
find appropriate ways to integrate abstract representations of information
objects. Various abstract representations are commonly used in computing
systems to manage collections of information objects, in particular, by
providing overviews the collections. For instance, a document may be
represented as a tile in the TaskBar, an icon in a folder window, or a file
name on a “Recent documents” list. Such representations allow the user to
get overviews of open windows, folder content, or recently edited text
documents, and use the representation to select, open, delete, etc., the
information objects. In traditional desktop systems such abstract
representations are more difficult to integrate across different information
hierarchies than open windows. The strategies for overcoming this
limitation, proposed in the design of activity-centric systems, include
grouping several TaskBar tiles together (GroupBar, Robertson et al., 2007),
extending a representation of an information hierarchy, such as file system,
by adding representations of relevant items from other hierarchies, such as
web browser favorites (WorkSpaceMirror, Boardman and Sasse, 2004), and
creating an integrated system of pointers that provides references to various
types of information objects (e.g., lists of resources in UMEA or
TaskTracer).

Managing collections of activities

People, both individuals and groups, are typically involved in several
activities taking place generally in parallel (Barreau and Nardi, 1995;
Cypher, 1986). Therefore, managing collections and not just isolated
activities is one of the challenges for activity-centric systems. In current
systems, the management of a collection is typically supported by providing
various types of overviews of the user’s activities and making it possible to
switch between the overviews and contexts of particular activities. The
most elaborated set of tools for presenting activities and their relationships
is proposed within the Unified Activity Management project which reflects
the special focus of the project on “meta-activities,” that is activities
directed at other activities. Most other activity-centric systems employ
relatively simple representations of collections of activities, such as lists
extended with some PIM features, e.g., deadlines.

EVALUATING ACTIVITY-CENTRIC TECHNOLOGIES

AND ENVIRONMENTS
Most activity-centric systems have been evaluated in a variety of empirical
studies including workshops and focus groups, brief usability testing
sessions, small-scale trial implementations, and full-scale deployment in
real-life contexts over extended periods of time (Balakrishnan et al., 2010;
Bardram, 2007; Boardman and Sasse, 2004; Dragunov et al., 2005;
Kaptelinin, 2003; Voida and Mynatt, 2009). The results of most of these
studies suggest that such systems help users overcome fragmentation of
their workspaces (Balakrishnan et al., 2010), support focus on the content
of their work rather than technological issues (Bardram, 2007), and provide
good user experience (Voida and Mynatt, 2009). For instance, users of the
UMEA system appreciated the possibility to access various types of
project-related resources “from within one place” (Kaptelinin, 2003), and
users of the Giornata system mentioned that saving documents in project-
specific workspaces “feels better than filing”(Voida and Mynatt, 2009).
Further studies are needed to properly assess specific advantages and
disadvantages of activity-centric systems, as well as their underlying design
approaches. For a couple reasons, interpretation of existing evaluation
studies is somewhat problematic. First, activity-centric systems differ from
one another. A key objective of the design of a system can be, for instance,
integrating diverse resources around the activity at hand, supporting activity
switching and its continuity across locations and technologies, promoting
reflection and continuous development, or a combination thereof. These
objectives are different for different systems, which makes it difficult to
compare and generalize the results of the evaluation studies. Second, even
though some of the studies analyzed long term user experiences with
activity-centric systems, the time scope may still be insufficient, since both
advantages and disadvantages of activity-centric systems can only become
obvious when the systems are fully integrated into everyday practices of
their users.

8The advantages do not necessarily scale up to wall-size displays, since such displays
may incur additional costs; for instance, they may make it necessary for the user to
move a few meters to switch between simultaneously displayed workspaces.
 CHAPTER 6

Activity theory and the development of HCI

INTRODUCTION
As a final step toward generatively linking activity theory with current
developments in HCI, we return to some of the concerns raised in Chapter
1, in particular the notion that purposeful collaborative transformation of
the world finds expression in theory. We address recent research in human-
computer interaction that could fruitfully deploy a theoretical approach such
as activity theory. As a point of departure, as well as homage, we use the
foundational human information processor model (Card et al., 1983) as a
touchstone. We leverage the model for what it tells us about aspects of HCI
historically and in the contemporary moment.
While HCI has changed in countless ways since 1983, the human
information processor model retains significant influence (Clemmensen,
2006). It deserves our continuing admiration for establishing a solid basis
for the scientific study of HCI. In the following analysis, the model stands
as a contrastive point of reference for certain aspects of newer work which
we will call “human needs HCI” or “hn-HCI.” This work comprises a
cluster of several ambitious streams of research that have emerged in the
last five years. The research is historically grounded, shaped around
complex real world problem spaces, and conceived as a response to these
problems. hn-HCI foregrounds sociotechnical environments that speak to
urgent human needs. This focus contrasts with “research projects and
commercial undertakings focused . . . on perceived needs or manufactured
needs” (Tomlinson et al., 2012). We use the term hn-HCI not to create
dichotomous categories of HCI research, but to bring forward and celebrate
research with clear commitments to social justice, equity, and goals beyond
profit, or, as Stetsenko (2008) says (in her passionate way), “goals including
the shift away from narrowly economic interests, unfair international
policies, mindless consumption, and pernicious instrumentalism.” hn-HCI
research includes (but is not limited to) sustainable HCI, interactive and
collaborative technologies for development (ICTD), crisis informatics,
comparative informatics, and collapse computing. This research is not
wholly contained within HCI, but HCI has made major contributions,
helping shape agendas and introduce unique perspectives.
Projects in hn-HCI, and the trends to which they have given rise,
contribute to what Clemmensen calls “a rush of different theories and
frameworks into HCI” (2006) (some of which we have analyzed in past
discussions of distributed cognition, situated action, and so on [Kaptelinin
and Nardi, 2006; Nardi, 1996a]). How do we understand these trends and
their needs for theories and frameworks? In this chapter we discuss hn-HCI
and suggest how activity theory may prove useful in supporting its
development. We appropriate the human information processor model—
with its persistently influential intellectual commitments to controlled lab
studies, a nomothetic, ahistorical approach, and the generalizability of
“mechanisms” of action—in order to throw a light on the particularly
difficult challenges hn-HCI has set for itself, and the conceptual needs that
issue from those challenges. hn-HCI is not merely an instance of the
computer reaching out to wider spheres of “users” (Grudin, 1990)—a
standpoint in which the computer is still the center of the universe—but
represents a bold turn toward conceiving HCI as an approach to design that
analytically subordinates itself to concerns embedded in complex
sociotechnical contexts. These contexts are characterized by aggravated,
persistent problems—the environment, poverty, education, disasters, cross-
cultural communication, societal decline.
While spanning a broad range of domains and topical areas, the
research questions in each stream of hn-HCI share important characteristics:
they are historically-sensitive; they presuppose analysis at the level of
systems, and they are what we might loosely call “reality-based”9. Moving
out of the lab and into the real world, hn-HCI research is motivated by deep
interests in visible, sometimes shocking, problems of human life. The
research is grounded in identifiable domains that provide the specific
context of particular realities. hn-HCI presents a significant opportunity for
studies of human-computer interaction to materially impact arenas of global
concern. We locate activity theory as a framework that speaks to emergent
problematics of hn-HCI.
Our discussion does not comprise a literature review of hn-HCI (which
is beyond the scope of the book), but shows potential connections to
activity theory. Research in hn-HCI has developed inductively, driven by
heartfelt worries about resource scarcity, human rights, inequality, and other
social anxieties, but also by perplexing problems of cross-cultural
communication and collaboration in the workplace, as well as the impacts
of ICTs on national and cultural identities. We believe that these inductively
emergent areas of investigation should seek to mature into more
conceptually sophisticated, theoretically informed practices. Not only
would each individual stream of research benefit from firmer theoretical
footing, but the individual streams should, over time, connect with one
another, enriching, and mutually influencing one another. While the
research streams may ultimately remain only loosely coalesced, it is
important that theoretical and conceptual bridges encourage dialogue and
cross-fertilization for greater impact. As Stetsenko (2008) noted, often the
impact of sociocultural research is diminished as different schools of
thought lodge themselves in separate academic domiciles, foreclosing
opportunities for integration and greater influence.
We note that hn-HCI is a recent development. Publications have nearly
all appeared since 2007. How is it that HCI has developed so powerfully so
recently? It is difficult to say with certainty “why now,” but we think that
two causes are evident. First, HCI has matured into a robust sub-discipline
of research lending scholars and practitioners confidence and assurance
enough to tackle difficult problems of wide scope. Second, many in the
community feel that global problems and issues seem only to intensify.
Rather than moving toward solutions, the difficulties of our times
measurably deepen (Diamond, 2004; Tainter, 1990, 2006; Vardi, 2009; see
Tomlinson et al., 2012). hn-HCI is a response to a shared sense that HCI
has, in the intervening years since the human information processor model
grounded us in a rigorous science, developed sufficiently that we can and
should do some good, taking action on troubling issues that are ever more
plainly visible, and call for our attention.
hn-HCI
Perhaps the most dramatic instance of the power of hn-HCI to capture the
imaginations and energies of researchers in our field is the meteoric rise of
studies of sustainable HCI (Blevis, 2007; Blevis and Stolterman, 2007;
Huang et al., 2009; Mankoff et al., 2008; Tomlinson, 2010). Sustainable
HCI is concerned with: (1) designing technologies that reduce impacts on
the environment (e.g., through longer cycles of obsolescence; see Blevis,
2007) and (2) designing technologies that help people reduce impact on the
environment through behavioral change (such as digital meters informing
people of their energy use, e.g., Amsel and Tomlinson, 2010; Mankoff et
al., 2007). In an analysis of the literature in sustainable HCI, DiSalvo,
Sengers and Brynjarsdóttir (2010a) report that heterogeneous methods,
orientations, and approaches characterize what they call the “explosive
growth” of sustainable HCI. The authors point to its near overnight success
as a visible and valued focus of research in HCI. They observe that broad
issues of culture, lifestyle, democracy, participation, politics, and
professional design practice infuse discussions of sustainable HCI. This
“explosion” of interest began in 2007, and marks a watershed as HCI takes
on problems of significantly increased scope.
However, DiSalvo, Sengers, and Brynjarsdóttir (2010b) also observe
that HCI may not be fully ready conceptually and methodologically to
address the problems sustainable HCI seeks to solve.
[T]he packageable methods popular in HCI map poorly to sustainability because they
fail to take into account the complexity of the problem (Blevis, 2007) . . . [D]esign
driven by formal models of user needs leads to rapid obsolescence when new needs are
found (Wakkary and Tanenbaum, 2009) . . . [E]valuation of long-term and systemic
effects is a blind spot for HCI (Huang et al., 2009; Nathan, 2008).

We agree with this assessment. DiSalvo, Sengers, and Brynjarsdóttir

situate sustainable HCI exactly within the context of the kinds of problems
that must be analyzed, as we have argued, with historical sensitivity,
attention to complex systems, and an eye to reality-based solutions. As
Kuutti (2011) remarks, there are “not that many social theories” that
encompass these perspectives. Activity theory is thus a leading candidate.
In particular, activity theory emphasizes the centrality of artifacts—a
theoretical position shared by only a few other theories such as actor-
network theory (see Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). Historically, most social
theories have ignored artifacts, or seen them as epiphenomenal, or
conceived them as props for discourse, the maintenance of social order, or
the fostering of interpersonal relations (see Huizing and Cavanagh, 2011).
Studies of ICTD set their sights on a constellation of issues as
challenging as those of sustainable HCI. ICTD asks nothing less than that
we move toward “making life better for the least privileged people of the
world” (Toyama, 2010). Work in ICTD is concerned with improvements in
technology and infrastructure for those living in chronically dire economic
circumstances (Burrell, 2009; Le Dantec and Edwards, 2008; Patterson et
al., 2009; Sambasivan et al., 2010; Woelfer et al., 2011).
The field of crisis informatics addresses saving lives and rebuilding
infrastructure in the context of consequential events including natural
disasters and political disruptions (Al-Ani et al., 2012; Mark et al., 2012;
Palen et al., 2007; Qu et al., 2009; Shlovski et al., 2010; Starbird and Palen,
2011; Torrey et al., 2007). Collapse computing (Tomlinson et al., 2012;
Wong, 2009, see Diamond, 2004; Tainter, 1990, 2006; Vardi, 2009) picks
up where local disasters leave off, addressing the possibility of persistent,
pervasive societal decay. Collapse computing is grounded in the orienting
observation that
Research in many fields argues that contemporary global industrial civilization will not
persist in its current form, and may, like many past human societies, eventually
collapse. Arguments in environmental studies, anthropology, and other fields indicate
that this transformation could begin within the next half-century. While imminent
collapse is far from certain, it is prudent to consider now how to develop
sociotechnical systems for use in these scenarios (Tomlinson et al., 2012).

Collapse computing is thus a preemptive strike to anticipate the kinds

of ICT solutions collapse might entail, drawing on work in sustainable HCI,
ICTD, and crisis informatics, but going well beyond in predicting a more
seriously dysfunctional future. Collapse computing entertains the premise
of a vivid if disturbing historical parable that recounts the rise and fall of
most complex societies. Collapse computing’s narrative continues, more
hopefully, to indicate “the potential contribution that the field of HCI can
make to the eventuality of collapse” (Tomlinson et al., 2012).
 Somewhat less urgently, but still crucially important, is the study of
comparative informatics which seeks to make visible, in our global world,
both difference and similarity, in subtle ways that can influence design
(Nardi et al., 2011). Comparative informatics
systematically examines similarities and differences in the ICT life cycle—design,
development, deployment, adoption, use, impact, and evaluation—in contexts
including cultures, regions, nations, generations, socioeconomic classes, gender,
organizations, and technologies. The objective is to generate nuanced, critical
understandings of technology in human life in the world we inhabit together (p. 1).

As an example, the authors describe how study of the “white rat” of

HCI—word processing—does not necessarily encompass the universal set
of technologies and results we might suppose. Subtle technological
differences decenter national identity; for example the Danish vowels æ, ø,
and å are not always available on standard keyboards and smartphones (see
also Clemmensen 2010). Danish users must get along without these vowels,
or use sequences of control keys to type them. Yet these letters represent
core sounds in Danish, and were institutionally systematized into the
language decades ago in the official Retskrivningsordbog udgivet af Dansk
Sprognævn (1955). Clemmensen (2010) notes also that “not before the year
2003 were Danish letters allowed in domain names, which for the first time
allowed Danish companies like Carlsberg to spell beer on websites in the
correct way: ‘øl’.” As HCI scholars and practitioners, we must ask how
such history and cultural identity bear on our practice of design, and how
we may conceive diversity in ways that go beyond superficial
“localization.” New formulations are imperative as concerns regarding
national character and personhood may be at stake.
The original human information processor model argued for the
importance of examining diversity in user populations and tasks of interest.
As Clemmensen (2006) observed,
In the [human information processor] framework, systems were designed for different
task domains and task models. User interfaces of computers varied in dialogue style,
input devices and display layout, and the human users had different intellectual
abilities, computer experience, task knowledge, computer knowledge, cognitive style
and perceptual-motor skills.
 We find significant value in this argument. But at the same time, in a
“hard science” gambit, the human information processor model rejected the
historical, reality-based empirics necessary for hn-HCI. An ahistorical
perspective continues to pervade HCI. Clemmensen (2006) discusses how it
was argued that
The hard science psychology should focus on the use of theories that identified
underlying mechanisms as opposed to an insufficient soft science HCI psychology
consisting of “. . . the judgment of the theorists, the experience of the practitioners, the
assessments of the users, or even the empirical evaluation of systems . . .” (Newell and
Card, 1986)

It is remarkable that this conceptualization eschewed user experience

and evaluation in favor of “mechanisms,” and clearly it built no bridges to
the study of what is necessary for the research entailed in hn-HCI. It is
difficult to imagine a “hard science” orientation addressing, say, the role of
digital technology in the stabilization of cultural identity, the use of
technologies in the aftermath of a hurricane, or how we might conceive
information technologies in the event of widespread political unrest or
global declines in energy availability. hn-HCI must orient toward
developing contingent, open-ended analyses that do not rest on “atomistic
tasks” (see Carroll and Campbell, 1986) disconnected from historical
context. As Clemmensen observed, the very nature of HCI systems in the
human information processor model was defined at too low a level to scale
to important problems of human-computer interaction (2006). hn-HCI, and
its current popularity and rapid rise to prominence, indicate that firmer,
deeper theoretical development is essential.

TIME, SPACE, SCOPE

The complexity inherent in hn-HCI gives rise to challenging analytics of
time, space, and scope. While “context” is often invoked as what is missing
in HCI research, we want to be more specific. We begin with time in
discussing these problematics and their conceptual, methodological, and
epistemological orientations.
HCI has long taken a cue from the human information processor model
in accepting the imaginary of the timeless moment of the laboratory
experiment. This moment reifies context-free generic tasks as its subject
matter. In hn-HCI, tasks that putatively persist unchanged over time are
replaced by the temporal dynamics of complex lived experiences occurring
within powerful historical events and activities. The beginning of a disaster
is different than its later stages. An impoverished school system that
receives new computers is not the same school system that eventually
negotiates its way toward more effective use of the technology. Design
practices that at one time seemed benign are shown to set in motion
deleterious environmental effects. Events and activities unfold within
systems such as school systems, emergency response infrastructure, NGOs,
governments, corporations. Clemmensen observed that underlying the
human information processor model was a belief that it would be possible
to conduct detailed studies of a set of “generic tasks” that would yield
generalizable understandings across many domains (2006).
But as Kuutti (2011) counters,
[M]ost theory suggestions have assumed the timeless, general, and abstract natural
science model of theory. [T]he subject matter of design is of a historical nature, so a
timeless theory is incapable of grasping the essentials of the field.

Kuutti argues that activity theory, which has been oriented toward
history and development since its inception, is a “dynamically oriented
alternative” theory for studies of human computer interaction. We concur,
and further suggest that activity theory is especially pertinent to hn-HCI
with its particular concerns arising directly out of specific historical events
and conditions. Activity theory presupposes and theorizes change, rather
than aiming at nomothetic generalization that more or less stops time.
An argument against the timeless moment of the laboratory is not an
argument against experimentation, but opposes experimentation in which a
roster of tasks is examined in laboratories under the assumption that
experimental control is possible because (in part) the tasks are timeless. hn-
HCI begins with an understanding of a mutable historical reality from
which experiments may be devised, rather than the axiomatic belief that a
tractable set of generic tasks exists that we can study in pure form. As
discussed in Chapter 2, formative experiments emphasizing transformation
over time are a key method in activity theory.
 Kuutti observed that the acceptance of dynamism leads directly to a
“sensitivity to history.” All activities are historically formed, and they thus
“carry with them the history of their development” (2011). A historical
analysis of the development of an activity is a means by which to clarify
and understand the current situation (Kuutti, 2011). Technology itself is
always changing, intertwining with, and giving rise to changes in practice
(Huizing and Cavanagh, 2011).
Stetsenko (2008) observes that “necessary components of a
commitment to social transformation presuppose understanding that social
institutions are malleable, historically contingent, and fluid, and therefore
require a historically based understanding.” By its very nature, hn-HCI
embodies this stance. But its theoretical development is nascent; work to
date has focused on consideration of technology within the compelling
domains the work addresses rather than theoretical analysis or development.
We believe that activity theory’s understandings of history and change
are useful resources for the transformative project of hn-HCI. In particular,
the emphasis on artifact mediation as a process of change is crucial. As
Kuutti (2011) notes, “A typical way of inducing a purposeful change in an
activity is re-mediation: change in some of the mediating artifacts.” How do
artifacts and their uses change, and what effects do the changes have? These
considerations rarely arise in lab studies of the human information
processor variety, or even field studies, yet they are crucial in the real
world. Activity theory’s emphasis on artifacts as mediators of change is
central to the concerns of hn-HCI (see also Bødker and Andersen, 2005;
Bødker and Klokmose, 2011).
Just as time is often deleted in our analyses, so is space. Cartesian
space is important but we call special attention to human culture and
identity as they emergently change across space. (Cartesian space itself is of
course implicated in constructing and defending culture and identity.) ICTD
and comparative informatics in particular investigate implicit assumptions
about culture and identity that constitute universalizing moves to
generalize. These moves often turn out to call on typified experience
extracted and decontextualized from the geographical point of origin of a
technology. For example, as word processing technology traveled from its
original home in California—the locale that established its typification—it
carried with it presumptions of American usage. Eventually the design
bumped up against other realities such as the Danish alphabet. These
confrontations forced reexamination, but not before leading Danes to
experiment with some awkward adaptations. For example, a Danish travel
blog writer recounted how when using “un-Danish” computers, it was
possible to write æ, ø and å with the following codes
æ : 0230
Æ : 0198
@ : 064
ø : 0248
Ø : 0216
å : 0229
Å : 0197
by holding down the alt key while typing the numeric code for each letter
(Nardi, Clemmensen, and Vatrapu 2011). Clemmensen (2010) reported the
exasperation of Danish domain name owners when the full Danish alphabet
was finally accommodated in domain names:
I own a company “Åberg El,” and we have through the past five years had our website
on the following domains:
aaberg-el.com
aaberg-el.dk
aaberg-el.se
aaberg-el.no

These pages are well-known and constantly used by our customers. ÆØÅ is
introduced as domain names, and suddenly Åberg-el must invest in the domains:
åberg-el.com, etc . . . If you do not own both the domain with “aa” and that with “å,”
you risk losing either the old customers or potential customers. Even worse, a domain
shark or a competitor bought the domain with either “aa” or “å” (Wenix, 2003, cited in
Clemmensen).
 As we traverse global space, encountering new cultures, practices, and
identities, it is necessary that we acknowledge and theorize them,
recognizing the unevenness of technological experience as it varies across
space. Patterson et al. (2009) discussed the perils of “design at a distance,”
recounting how their design ideas formulated in the US were discarded one
by one as they encountered reality in the actual cultural and geographical
spaces of low-income Zambia and South Africa. The authors emphasized
that identifying the particularities of specific spaces is essential and
difficult:
[We believed] that we were one type of user, and Africans were a homogenous “other”
kind of user. This was our implicit justification for doing initial background
investigations with people from places as varied as Sierra Leone and Kenya, even
though these were not the environments in which we were planning to deploy our
technologies.

Finally, hn-HCI demands that we alter the usual scope of our analyses.
Small laboratory studies, localized ethnographies, and the study of
microinteractions in ethnomethodological investigations usually fail to get
at what information philosopher Jannis Kallinikos (2004) memorably calls
“essential strips of reality.” Kallinikos argued that construals of technology
“cannot be exhausted at the very interface upon which humans encounter
technology. Essential strips of reality are not observable or even describable
at the level of contextual encounters.” Kallinikos points out that when
sticking only to localized analyses, we misapprehend contemporary
technologies and technological systems whose form and function
(Kallinikos, 2012) go far beyond the user interface or simple notions of user
experience. Large information systems implicated in our daily lives
(banking systems, electronic patient record systems, databases of all kinds,
for example) are outside the scope of traditional usability HCI metrics.
Rather than being “adaptable,” “customizable,” or amenable to “interpretive
flexibility,” on the contrary, these systems exhibit considerable rigidity,
usually making it impossible for users to fix errors (e.g., banking errors or
misinformation about one’s medical status or criminal history) without
engaging large and sometimes daunting institutions. Rather than adhering to
HCI’s optimistic notions of user control, choice, and preference, these
systems often entail serious risks such as wrongful caching and propagation
of consequential information. The “user interface” is in fact a very small
aspect of our experience with crucial everyday information systems.
Of course in traditional HCI this did not matter; the user interface was
established as the key point of inquiry—the correct “strip of reality” to
which our attentions were properly directed. But without quite realizing it,
hn-HCI has, in its bottom-up, inductive way, relinquished narrowly
conceived notions of user interaction, moving attention forward to issues of
considerably larger scope. For example, Blevis (2007), in an award-winning
CHI paper, indicates the need to reconstitute HCI so that we take seriously
the entire life cycle of a technology, interpolating recycling, reuse, disposal,
and so on, within focal HCI concerns. Palen et al. (2007) detail the
intricacies of citizen-government relations in managing and responding to
disasters, and what those societal-scale relations mean for HCI. Wong
(2009) discusses the need to broaden the scope of HCI if research is to
achieve meaningful results: “Researchers should . . . consider . . . the design
context to be a world radically altered by environmental damage; solutions
that fit into today’s lifestyles risk irrelevance” (2009). Wong succinctly
captures essential hn-HCI analytics: time (changing environmental
damage), cultural space (certain lifestyles), and scope (the world). These
analytics are not standalone “variables;” they represent mutually
influencing, holistic conditions we must apprehend, and respond to, if our
work is to avoid “risking irrelevance.”
Within a larger context of human-centered computing, Kaptelinin and
Bannon (2012) frame the argument by observing that HCI is still typically
circumscribed by notions of technological products, but that we must
appreciate more broadly construed “habitats.” Kuutti (2010) notes that in
Europe “user experience” research is badly undertheorized; there has even
been a retreat to “personal, practice-grounded opinions” that “define what
user experience means.”
Throughout the years we have seen a steady stream of calls for more
expansive, principled formulations to enlarge the scope of HCI beyond
parochial limits of technological products and practice-oriented strategies
(e.g., Bannon, 2011; Carmien et al., 2005; Fischer et al., 2004; Forlizzi,
2008; Friedman et al., 2006; Kirsh, 2001; Nardi, 1996a; Spinuzzi, 2003).
Bannon is clear that we have not yet achieved the potential of these
approaches:
We should not believe that applying new labels such as “human centered” to HCI or
computing or design in itself changes anything. Rather, the name change points to a
more bottom-up process of rediscovering our human potential and reconstructing the
very foundations on which we attempt to build any form of human-centered
informatics (Bannon, 2011).

We suggest that while the development of broader conceptual and

theoretical approaches has not been without impact in the field, Bannon is
largely right about the urgent need for foundational work and more effective
efforts. We hope that the considerable passion behind hn-HCI will be a
catalyst that moves the field forward in ways it has not moved before. The
powerful empirical realities of ICTD, collapse computing, and all of hn-
HCI, constitute compelling strips of reality around which we can rally and
organize as we move to “reconstruct the foundations” of HCI.
Ethical issues should be paramount in this reconstruction. Bannon
(2011) notes that ethical inquiry often eludes us, advocating that as we
“reimagine HCI,” we must at the same time “act out” a better world. This
proposition is exactly what drives hn-HCI. We are thus due for a major
reappraisal of the scope and nature of research within the field of human-
computer interaction.

ACTIVITY THEORY AND hn-HCI

Although activity theory is a psychological theory, as we saw in Chapter 2,
from activity theory’s earliest beginnings, human culture, history, and
development were pillars of analysis. Activity theory has thus come to be
known as cultural-historical activity theory. Miettinen et al. (2009) observe
that activity theory is “a well-developed model of the structure and
developmental dynamics of human activity, as well as a non-individualist
theory of learning based on the concept of cultural mediation.” The
embodied, individual human person does not disappear in activity theory
(as in approaches such as actor-network theory); rather, this person is
defined—through the principles of mediation, development, and
internalization-externalization—indivisibly in relation to culture and other
people. Miettinen et al. (2009) emphasize Leontiev’s (1978) axiom that
consciousness and meaning are always formed in joint, collective activity.
If one takes away nothing from activity theory but a disposition to examine
history and culture in a principled way, the value of activity theory is
assured.
However, it is not so easy to do even this much. Perhaps the
difficulties of deeper analysis explain why we do not more readily engage
history and culture in our research. Each presents its own problems of
argumentation, rhetorical strategy, and epistemology. Added complexity
does not always slot comfortably into ever shorter cycles of production that
seem to characterize contemporary work patterns. As the world rushes past
faster and faster (due in part to the very digital technologies we champion),
the quiet and time needed to thoughtfully engage complex problems give
way to quicker, dirtier solutions. Many current conference papers, for
example, scarcely cite work more than ten years old, no matter how
relevant it may be, much less dig deeply into the culture and history of the
subject matter. When value is measured in number of publications and
conference presentations, we experience insistent pressure to devise ways to
carve up our research into the greatest number of “minimal meaningful
units” to maximize measured value. It is perhaps no accident that activity
theory originated in a profoundly different cultural era, one which we can
hardly imagine today.
The world may press on us, but that does not negate that hn-HCI (and
serious proposals for human-centered computing) demand the incorporation
of exactly the cultural and historical elements activity theory established as
essential. A position statement of the European Society for Socially
Embedded Technologies (EUSSET, 2009) asks:
How can we respond to the inescapable “permanent tension” between the need for
global systems and the enduring or emerging local concerns and issues, how can we
design in support of cultural diversity, social inclusion, as well as social and
environmental sustainability; how can we design for new forms of engagement and
participation?

In taking these questions to heart, the principle of development in

activity theory is a critical resource. A recursive concept, development can
turn theory back on itself, prescribing that all theories—activity theory
included—develop and respond to changing cultural and historical
conditions. The “new forms of thinking about the human-technology
relationship” that Bannon (2011) argues for will arise when we push
ourselves theoretically.
As an example, such development of activity theory is evident in
Bødker and Andersen’s (2005) proposal for analysis of “complex
mediation” in sociotechnical systems. Complex mediation comprises two
parts: “multi-mediation” in which multiple technologies and their
interrelations form the backbone of empirical/theoretical analysis, and
semiotic analysis.
The authors take a core concept from activity theory—mediation—and
develop it into a more nuanced, yet practical notion of multi-mediation,
noting that while most HCI analyses concern a single technological
mediator, in reality, activities generally entail multiple mediators in varying
configurations. Bødker and Andersen identify key configurations as (1) co-
occurring mediators, (2) mediators at different levels, and (3) chains of
mediators. They argue that we should design for multiple mediators rather
than “singular use.”
The authors weave semiotic analysis into the scheme to draw attention
to both instrumental and semiotic activities. While Vygotsky (1962, 1978)
was deeply involved with semiotics, semiotic concerns faded to some
degree in later treatments of activity theory. Bødker and Andersen point to
this as a lack, and develop careful argumentation accentuating that
instrumentality and semiosis are necessarily bound up with one another, and
that we need to develop analytics to contain both.
Complex mediation maps nicely to instances of hn-HCI; for example,
Blevis’s call for sustainable product design ideas such as Nelson and
Stolterman’s (2003) “ensoulment.” Ensoulment—an emotional disposition
of a customer toward a product—favors designs with long term appeal over
those presuming more immediate obsolescence. Strategies such as
ensoulment constitute a semiotic move—they enhance the scope of HCI’s
typical concerns beyond, for example, the instrumentalities of usability.
The enormity of this larger semiotic task within hn-HCI is evident in
an anecdote from Patterson et al. (2009) who recount an event in their
research on mobile phones in Africa:
One of our Zambian hosts even referred to a class of cell phones as “disposable;” he
would buy one of these when traveling to a different region, to maximize connectivity
and minimize cost, and then discard the phone upon return.

Even in less economically secure regions, a pervasive acceptance of

disposability as a rational strategy shapes action. This small anecdote is a
world in a grain of sand in illustrating the challenges of hn-HCI. The ethical
issues to which Bannon points infuse this story; the authors lack a clear
moral directive regarding how to confront practice in other cultures that
contradicts our own hoped for values (such as sustainability). The sheer
hugeness of the problem of finding out what it is that people are doing and
what their actions mean to them presents a formidable challenge in attaining
cogent semiotic understanding.
Patterson et al. (2009) also reported the need to design with
assemblages of multiple mediators in mind. In their research, phone cards,
Wi-Fi antennas, electrical adapters, and software applications were
necessary, as well as mobile phones themselves. The authors present this
finding as an “aha” moment discovered through intensive field research—
and as a big surprise.
We argue that with a less ad hoc approach, a more theoretically
ambitious reckoning, the authors might have used activity theory, perhaps
Bødker and Andersen’s understandings of multiple mediators, to prepare
themselves to anticipate the complexity they encountered. Details could
well remain obscure until arrival in the field, but more nuanced preparation
and envisagement would be possible. As the old saying goes, there is
nothing so practical as a good theory.

CONCLUSION

Stetsenko (2008) remarks that scholars moving toward more intense study
of their domains often begin to reinvent the basics of activity theory as they
seek to ground the work conceptually. We hope, with this book, to save you
the trouble! It has been our intent to gather together activity theory basics in
the most straightforward way possible, summarizing nearly 100 years of
work that has traveled slowly but steadily from its beginnings in Soviet
Russia, into Europe, North America, and Asia. We close the book with
tremendous optimism. In this chapter we identified and characterized hn-
HCI, a promising development in studies of human-computer interaction.
We believe activity theory can enhance this line of research. We are inspired
to see HCI scholarship that puts problems first, leaving a crucial opening
for theory. We discussed the close match between the concerns of hn-HCI
and core activity theory precepts: history, culture, development,
technological mediation. We see these notions sneaking into hn-HCI
studies, but in tentative, piecemeal ways. This book should enable readers
to appropriate the concepts in a more integrated, principled manner.
Perhaps most importantly, we invite readers to visit the work of the
activity theory scholars whose research we have discussed. The proof of the
pudding ultimately lies in the thoughtful contributions of these members of
the HCI community (and beyond). The research practices in this work tell a
tale of their own: multi-year projects, intensive participant-observation,
participatory design, theoretical reflection and development, and dedication
to understanding culture and history. These practices are not just common
sense; they arise directly from the theoretical concerns of activity theory
and its characterization of human activity. The payoff of careful, patient
inquiry lies in attaining knowledge derived from the application of a theory
that insists that what is important in human life cannot always be seen in
few moments, that we possess a strong potential for human development,
and that culture and history are shaping but not determinative forces.
We return to Stetsenko’s cautionary words on the profound costs of
ignoring theory. hn-HCI in particular, but HCI at large as well, represent a
significant progressive project within the larger field of computer science.
The human face of computing is vivid and present because of the labors of
the HCI community. To push our concerns forward, we can grow HCI with
a theory as powerful and encompassing as the reductionist theories we
discussed as we opened the book. Activity theory’s message, in place of a
story of immutable genetics, is that culture and history matter, that change
belongs to us, that a move to a “collaborative historical becoming,” as
Stetsenko says, is a challenge we can and should embrace. The reductionist
synthesis prevails because it is unafraid to ask what it means to be human,
and to offer a definite (if simplistic, in our view) answer. Absent other
answers, the confident, crisply stated propositions issuing from the neuro-
sociobiological camp reach wider publics, and come to constitute the only
voice in the conversation. It is an irony of the doctrine of polyvocality that
when we listen to many voices, each saying its own thing, we hear the
unintelligible, amounting to a silence.
One answer to this silence is a more collaborative, focused
conversation about theory. Collaborative transformation of the world is an
ongoing, seemingly unstoppable human activity. Stepping into the stream of
historical change, we can contribute to that change through grounded,
reflective action informed by the articulation of coherent theory.

9In using the term reality-based, we reference broad historical realities, not user
interface techniques based on nondigital understandings, e.g., naive physics (see
Jacob et al., 2008).
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 Authors’ Biographies

VICTOR KAPTELININ
Victor Kaptelinin is a Professor at the Department of Information Science
and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway, and the Department of
Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden. He has held teaching and/or
research positions at the Psychological Institute of Russian Academy of
Education, Moscow Lomonosov University, and University of California,
San Diego, USA. His main research interests are in interaction design,
activity theory, and educational use of information technologies.

BONNIE NARDI
Bonnie Nardi is an anthropologist in the Department of Informatics at the
University of California, Irvine. She is interested in social life on the
Internet and works with activity theory as her principal orientation.
Bonnie’s recent book on virtual worlds, My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An
Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, was published by the
University of Michigan Press in 2010. A forthcoming book Ethnography
and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (with T. Boellstorff, C. Pearce.
and T.L. Taylor) will be published in August 2012 by Princeton University
Press.